Winter

The way we talk through storms,
sorting sounds
after the roads have stilled:

woodpecker,

wind chimes,
the black scrape of crows,
tiny songs of the smaller birds—
(I am a tiny song too)

It takes a good snow to slow the noise,

with time and a hot cup in hand.

This one sounds like cow bells,

but the cows are gone,
pastures are houses now.
Maybe the bells stayed behind.

Drops from melting ice

(I am a kind of ice)
My breath in fogs,
seeing it leave,
one breath less
one breath less.

The snow was blue once

well past midnight
and under the moon
I rode bareback,
warm smell of winter fur,
the snow muffled his hooves,
horse breath
my breath

Our path would be covered by dawn.

 

                                                            Cheryl Emerson

                                                            January, 2014

Tanglewood

Because music was never like this
and won’t be again.
Before the first note,
the surprise of it—

you know it as home,

variable as August evenings,

            the mix of winds,
            cut grass and sometimes
            the sea—

Because it ends, as things do,
mixing with night
and gone—

We call them movements,

implying relocation—

what the last note

leaves.

                                     C. Emerson

                                      January, 2014