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.