How is it winter still, how can we
be called to keep burying the desolate
in its customary abode? Not underground
but in the air, where no limits hold—
beyond weightlessness, demise of blooms
pressed into premature fluorescence.
Pity the skirl on the crest
of a bagpipe; pity the ice cap,
one pure sweep of cloud— I’d ask
for a bed woven by kind-hearted doves.
I’d ask for one bright fruit plucked
out of heaven: that is to say,
any mouthful of earth
that I’d been widowed from.
In response to Via Negativa: Winter Gardener.