Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Housatonic Winter Tint


PHOTOGRAPHER'S JOURNAL (Written while walking early yesterday in the cold beside Lake Waramaug. The picture was made at a different time and place.)

Strange
Passengers:

The first stirred branches, 
lifting a mist of crystal snow 
that sailed due east, 
a spectral galleon over the water.

Another careened 
among the white pines, 
unsure which way to turn and 
trailing a whirling, white mantilla. 

Where do they come from?
Where do they go?
Who is the conjurer?

A third bore down
along the shore
and a sandstorm of snow
skated on ice

through a stillness made immense
by an endless sky of slate 
and the banter of treetop crows 
on a far-off, faded shore.