After tossing and turning I cloak up
and step into the other larger room
outside, where frangible branches, glassy
garage and garbage cans have been chisled
from the brittle substance of algid air.
I take the crusted foot path towards the light
bulb inadvertently left on, its fragile
filament projecting a sallow cone
across the desolation of the yard.
But my boot crunch stays the mute implosion
of fir boughs and snow and the curtain swirls
of the aurora above, inertia
with a smell of its own. My senses seize
this scene sustained by sound from emptiness.
***
<The Skin of Things
***
Thought I would publish this most wintery of my poems, since I am off to Winnipeg for a week, which starts with the vernissage of Prairie Fire 36,4, wherein I propose a few translations from the Franco-Manitoban poet Paul Savoie.