A little short poem, sort of a quasi sonnet, set in Vermont.
It's called "The Cusp."
"So few birds, the ones that winter through
and the geese migrating through the empty fields,
fording the cropped, knuckled stalks of corn.
All around us, all that's green's suppressed.
And in the brooding wood, the bare trees, shorn of leaves
or else just shy of leaves, make a dark estate
beneath low clouds that have the look of stubborn snow.
In a purely scientific exercise, say you came from the moon
or returned like Lazarus, blinking from the cave,
you wouldn't know if winter's past or now beginning.
The bank slopes up.
The bank slopes down to the ditch.
Would it help if I said grieving has an end?
Would it matter if I told you this is spring?"