Winter

Winter

There's snow upon the laden bough
of a Hemlock in my yard.
The drifts are blowing endlessly
for the winter has been hard.

The Chickadees and Finches come
to dine on flowered seeds
and in their careless, hurried waste,
cold hastens humble needs.

Their urgency is broken now
by a cat upon the couch
and all the noise outside the glass
lends credence to her crouch.

Locked beneath my backyard stream
spring secrets softly flow,
reflected in the rippled ice
where sunlit dreams will grow.

For in an endless winter grasp
new furrows wait the plow,
and I will watch the snow that rests
upon the Hemlock bough.