Poems

Bit By Bit

By Peter Halstead

Bit by bit the snowflakes fall,
First just flake by flake,
Like hawks tucking in a stall,
Falling for their own sake.

And then two flakes follow
Together in the sky,
Framed against the hollow
Where summer's dead leaves lie.

Still the snow comes randomly,
Some graupel here and there,
Sticking faintly to a tree,
Indecisive in the air.

Suddenly the storm is here:
The leaden flurries grow
And all the leaders disappear,
Like snowflakes in the snow.

Tippet Alley
October 18th, 1993