it’s easy to stop seeing
what’s on the horizon
people in the valley
don’t really believe in it
what summer makes seem
no less than a mountain
winter shows as it is
no more than a hill
from my front porch
a sudden influx of sky
after the leaves fall
look it’s snowing
the flakes come to settle
in their multitudes
well into the evening
lightness piling up
between the trees
no more omnivorous earth
but a colony of the clouds
pale and puritanical
against which the individual
trunks stand out
an absent crowd
dreaming
together
underground
and after my own sleep
i rise and look again
on the underside
of a snowy limb
a gray squirrel is walking
upside-down
