Through the window winter becomes wider and stationary
Mountains appear to disappear in the swift steady silence
Of snowfall like so many Asian elephants migrating along
The valley lake cold and stoic shouldered in this kingdom
New without the aid of their mahouts a cusp of the crescent
Moon above them held in light and then released once more
A tusk piercing the dusky sky one daring breach of white
Here then gone then here again this up and down a nodding
In agreement with something I would wish to learn deeply
As echoes come funnelshaped sounds of distant trumpeting
The horns of village trucks upvalley the pines leaning in
Their icy weight to listen the moon moving the great beasts
Of mountains shadowing tire tracks and grizzled snowpack
While a low squall gathers itself to lumber in from the west.











From Poetry Magazine, Vol. 185, no. 2, Nov. 2004. Used with permission.