Strangely my head was still in February as I went east this morning to look around. I think I’ve fixed that now. The February part.
Field of queen anne’s lace
lifting small fine cups above
the white cloth cover.
—
This dusting snow in early March,
veiling and muffling the Berkshires
until the splayed, echoing edges
are just receding greys
repeated onward to the sky.
The charcoal oak,
the unexpected tan-gold willow,
the crosshatch of the dark bare trees
finally rising to the fringed peak.
I pass these and woods of others
who came here as I did seeking
something else than what towns speak.
They brought their short flat-roof’d homes
while I peer into the woods
someone is harvesting
stacking the stubby trunks
in the slashed open near the road.
Circling back around to home
I see the other ancient hills,
the pines not green but bottle
the field stubble a mask of tan
the limbs outlined here in white
to remark upon their blackness.
Back around to home:
a field of queen anne’s lace
lifting small fine cups above
a white cloth cover.
The last downhill:
I understand the blue door
and newly-painted red barn,
one’s mark to lean against
the heavy side of late winter.
—-
Two photos from long ago, January 2001:
