Peter Blair: Hibernation

A winter storm tears last leaves
from trees. Morning breaks
blue in the open spaces
through limbs: blue all around
down to the ground
 
            *
 
Ice locks the yard
in hard white slate.
Birds peck where they can,
in the grass under the car, 
in the mud under a flower pot
that tipped over
spilling out dead roots.
 
 
            *
 
In halls of falling snow,
I read dark tree limbs
lined with white
like an X-ray:
ribs, veins, heartwood
 
            *
 
Snow-melt along the sidewalk:
 
a white cat curled
under a thorny hedge,
 
frosted humpback turtles
dying in the curb-stream,
 
bulbous Henry Moore
sculptures
 
and on a stretch of muddy grass
grounded clouds
 
 
 
*
 
In the cold shadows
of a thick, leafless oak, 
it’s easier, with no glare,
to see the silent
gliding hawk, the tips 
of its feathers glinting,
and the squirrels 
leaping among 
the high marvelous limbs, 
the giant branches
holding back an immense
river of light
 

Peter Blair’s collections of poetry include Farang (Autumn House, 2010). He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Copyright 2021 Peter Blair