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We woke in the morning to air
that felt different
colder, more solid and silent
as if padded with something soft,
muffled and blanketed and
charged with expectation
and what felt like a promise.
The bedroom walls bloomed wildly
with dusky pink and yellow roses
that bathed us in a shower
of light and blossoms,
the thin morning sun illuminating
each petal from within.
White light poured in the window
through the panel of lace
that was stuck to the pane-
its movement hampered by the
motionless air and a thin layer of frost
which had penetrated the glass
and clung smooth, slick and
shimmering, like a new skin.
I looked out onto ice-covered fields
Framed by bare and black branches
My liquid amber tree, whose red and gold
Star-shaped leaves had colored my
Dreams as I napped under blue skies
Now stood sad and denuded
Stripped of its solace.
In the yard, Larkin
walked over the fence-
Four feet of pickets buried
in snow -all boundaries deleted
leaving behind only a vast and white
and newly uncharted landscape,
blank but for his paw prints.
Our first Maine winter - your first real snow
And we watched as our dog
walked out of the yard
on a piece of earth whose surface
had risen four feet overnight
We watched from an ice-covered window
in a room filled with roses.
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