this winter turns the wind       blue the roads                    gray the hills slice 

time into pages          you can walk between                              every          life       

happening       at once       here  also over                                                    there 


the birds          the snowy owls and the red                        tailed hawks eyeing 

the SUV which turns to an old                          silver automobile which turns     

to a black maned        horse which turns    to our feet     walking arm in arm   

in thick plaid skirts         clutching baskets filled           with yarn            there

is no other place                                                                                       so far away 


the owls can’t fly           to it there is nothing         so   hard   we   cannot   fall 

through it in the past                                I have clutched white feathers   only 

to lose       them in this life I met           a dog                    whose fur I gathered

and tucked                       into a tiny box                                     like an owl’s face           

we all met him together         I think                      when we stop in the middle      

of the road        it is to stare             at the ice                     coating     everything  

when we speak it is not               to each other          but to the feathers falling  

from the maple trees       like teeth                       like minutes         like nothing 

before         or after                  ever happened                           ever could happen