January Snow

Mist lowers down the canopies,
Hiding scars in newer mysteries
That replace the broken year
With inklings of a clearer world,
Hidden now in the rods and cones
Of the myopic river stones,
Of the inner eye, the glimmer
Of a sky that’s dimmer now,
But joyous as the first time
That we watched snow climb
Up to the handles of the door,
Watched the woods pour
Blankets of forgiving air
On our amassed despair,
Our crippled, lost, and dying friends
Whose lives have come to sudden ends,
Nothing like those fiery nights
Where we pledged ourselves to light,
To morning, youth, and constant sun
Over whose decay the winter runs
With such charity, with the measured
Touch of hands we treasured,
With the muffled roar
Of the glinting lives we wore
So easily, now duly led astray
Into their traditional dismay,
The rot and atrophy
Beneath the sky’s debris,
The waste to which we’re driven
By the graces that we’re given.

January 9th, 2020
Tippet Rise