On Silver Fields

http://www.grassclothwallpaper.net/winter-night-wallpaper/

I long to walk the silver fields

under half-cast haloed light:

the chilled night air calls out to see

such wonders that may be revealed

unto this stagnant, indoor sight.

I step into the waiting night,

my footfall bold on crusted snow,

aberrant sound disturbs the air—

my prints emboss the winter white,

such foreign-size in nature’s eyes.

Along the old stonewall I go,

the winterberries almost past;

the slightest touch, the softest brush

impressed into the powdered snow

reveal where tiny birds have fed.

I cut across toward sleeping wood

to intersect another path…

the deep and cloven prints reveal

where deer have trekked in search of food—

stripped sapling bark a tasty meal.

Now turn along the sleeping brook

to hear beneath its frozen glass

the water pulsing, pushing past—

awaiting thaw, again to dash

and splash this bed from whence it births.

And there, across this barren tract

more imprints seal another tale

two long, two short; then stroke of wings

where preying owl perchance prevailed

on snowshoe hare; small life curtailed.

Upon these silver fields I’ve trailed

over shadowed tracts I’ve roamed…

I’ve read the tales the snow’s revealed—

oh, how its stories have regaled!

Now cleave to path that leads me home.

© Ginny Brannan 2015

Sharing at dVerse Poet's January 2015 Open Link Night.

Inspired on the drive home last night, in part by many winter treks through our New England snow, and in part by an article recently read in Yankee Magazine "Return to Silver Fields" about author Rowland Evans Robinson, Ferrisburg, VT1833-1900; the title somewhat "borrowed"from his 'Silver Fields and Other Sketches of a Farmer-Sportsman'