if the necessary conditions
are not met
there will be no sugar on snow
Maewyn Succat
in lieu
of four leaf clover
make do
with lichen and ice
Favorite
loved best
the birch wears
a coat of many colors
Courtship
frost feathers the window
even the cold romances spring
Sweetheart
wind tossed curls and rosey hue
mysterious mistress
is in love with you
And
crystals and petals
drift and bloom
shimmer and flower
Resounds
cloisonnéd crabapple trunk
each hole a house
for woodpecker sounds
Shatterings
each crack and shattering
revealed new connections
and the permanence of change
Cold Gold
moon dust and magic
feather the window
in fairies’ cold gold
Bang
the frozen rock
a crack
the world is born
Ephemeral Beauty
snowflakes cleave
to the ephemeral beauty
of the leaf’s disintegration
Earth’s Wrinkles
water is the earth’s skin
wrinkled by the cold
marks and ridges telling time
the oldest story ever told
To Be Called
each and every seed
listens and waits
for the wind to call its name
inviting its flight on silken wings
Goldenrod in January
gone
are her golden
inflorescences
leaving only loveliness
Held
lichen blooms
on the granite post
barbed wire holds
the cold
Dance Again
early winter thaw
snow releasing its embrace
soon the freed the oak leaf
can dance with the wind
once again
Balance
Oh to be
a snowflake
balanced on a branch
set in place by grace
residing in a sacred place
Request
berries frame the empty nest
that rests until spring’s request
Before
a flower
before the season for flowers
blossom of seeds
Within
the single leaf
contains all of fall’s
colors and transitions
Fluid
last of the green leaves
make a watery autumn departure
Great Pumpkin
jack-o’-lantern
will light the way
keeping dark spirits at bay
Blaze
maple
sends up
a final flare of color
Thirst
edges drink the colors
of weather and time
which paint the leaves
Paradise
bee’s nirvana
a pollen utopia
found in October
Delphinium on Oak
summer echoes
in the single bud
fallen from the vase
Last Song
late blooms sing
a yellow serenade
to summer and her sunshine
Beauty’s Work
pink veined
form follows function
in the leaf’s architecture
Challenge
competitive dahlia
challenges fall’s colors
with her October bloom and bud
Insomnia
before the toad
is ready to retire
the garden is put to bed