Everything buried shall remain buried
beneath the soft swales of shifting snow:
the planter, the grill, the broken bicycle.
One day accumulates on the next.
Inches after hours, feet after weeks,
until the world is a sharp lipped cornice
curled up against winter’s white mountains.
How inexactly these solitudes slough away.
How relentlessly they re-accumulate.
The ranks will rise, tied to ropes,
tied to roofs, white knuckled shovels,
eyes to windshields, hands to wheels,
plowing deep into the winter night.
Nothing but the sound of a storm
sweeping before it the new fallen snow…
and maybe three split shots hitting the water
before another fish sets the drag singing.