The snow fits its shell onto the earth,
lovingly lays its attentive skintight bands
like burial cloth, cloaked, wound tight,
like the women tending their beloved,
with more than ample fabric
over the flesh of the earth, each shape,
every curve, every wound and hollow,
each breast and shoulder, thigh and brow,
fitted to its grave, held in stillness,
iced in for the long silence, the practice
once again of death by drowning,
all this water frozen over it, slowly
seeping in, penetrating, hard and fast,
and the earth beneath, the buried streams,
the silent roots, the unborn seeds whispering
Yes, yes.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
www.unfoldinglight.net
February 22, 2021