Ash

At early light the cold is like
A second door. The ash twigs stir
And crack. I hurry with the basket
Along the sheepway from the barn,
Walking taller on yesterday's prints
That are now frozen into moonscape.

It weighs like the dismembered branch
It must contain, and I feel like
A murderer with a guilty suitcase.
It was not I. It was the wind.
And yet the saw is oiled and ready.
Lovers of trees must still keep warm.


Two Roads

The future man trots gamely
Into the first definable
Prospects of his life
No further than a flower
...