All through the short gray day
and long into the solitary night
the snow poured

from itself to itself
cascading through that wide acreage
between heaven and earth singing

         Hush
         Slow Down
         Stop.

When morning dawned to a sparkling infinity
of curves and curls of hip-high snow,
I snowshoed, almost floating, into the woods

the silence there
so profound
it became a third presence:

         the community of old growth hemlocks and white pines
         that extravagance of snow
         and this quiet so complete

the still place in me
recognized it
and bowed.


This poem first appeared in Roads Taken: Contemporary Vermont Poetry (Green Writers Press, 2017).
Used here with permission.