Approaching winter

Five short poems

Lingering shades 
of anemic 
orange 
cling 

to the wooded horizon 
rendered into tendons

and vying 
with powerlines

to divide the fog.


*


Not alone
in the company of snow—
I take dictation.


*


The snow beneath
the tree’s shadow
branches into silence.


*


Above the altar,
beside the crucifix, light
molded by the frame
of a window—this shadow—
becomes another icon.


*


Faint December sun 
smudged between wire-thin branches.
Behind me, the creek—
and the sound of the water 
as it clenches into ice.