by Jim Curtis

Created on: August 28, 2009

Morning After Snow

The snow high on the pines' eastern limbs

is gilded by the rays of the sunrise sun.

Below that gleaming rim the pristine white sits

like treasured pieces of my mother's china.

Everything in this world, above, below,

is white except for gray-black lines

etched by trees upon the earth and sky.

In streaks of contrapuntal motion birds

flock the gessoed canvas of the scene.

A squirrel, tail filling like a ship's lone sail,

glides down a snowy length of branch,

leaps to a lesser limb whose swaying

sets a thousand snowflakes free to fall again.

Three sparrows, feathers puffed for warmth,

wait as a yellow-shafted flicker chooses seeds.

Tall, brown grasses bend before the drifts.

The cold air sparkles. The wind chimes hang still.

Morning after snow the world slumbers unaware

that below winter's whiteness a red, red river flows.

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