a last stone?

one last pebble,
if I'm lucky
there will be a quartz vein

and the pool
is dark, is deep

the splash, the ripples,
wait

but it is warm
in my pocket

and there is more
to say

so the pebble
wears smooth,
slowly
on lint

bed head

last summer's cock-comb glory
- ochre spikes,
husked flowers, dried
- their chimes now
only paper thin whispers

held in virgin white

but this Winter Queen
seeks no groom

old shed

sag-boarded,spindle beamed,
bowing beneath the weight
of snow's cap

having lost its bark
to the dogs of winter,
the shed
is naked to the frost

nest

twigs thatched,
a perch bleak

a snag of cloth
from a tattered somewhere

a spit of mud
and three feathers,
two lost, one found

and high in the tree,
waving in winter's maw,
it waits
for spring's tenants

fine snow

sky mist, ephemeral
- filling the blocks
of footprints

mortal transience
has stepped this way,
socked it with shadows

sky mist, ephemeral
- and the prints

are gone

head of steam

a scoop on a stick,
gloved hands, thick coat
and a great head of steam

but I am no railway,
simply the un-stoker
of snow on a deck

winter stream

there is a stream
flushing the hillside

the salt, the grey-brown
vomit of winter spurned
by traffic
and municipal sand

it hides
beneath the arched cap,
a vaulted snow

secret

for a while