poemasota

Where I am from
winter is something hard, like a stone.
A frozen thing remains a frozen thing.
Lakes steadily become ice: miniature glaciers
tipped on their backs gouging sockets
in the northern Minnesota woodlands.
I know a poem should be universal,
but I am writing
about Aitkin County, and further north
where the dark trickle of the Mississippi
begins its cold slither.
Where in winter, a snow comes to stay—
to stay as long as it wishes,
clumped furtively in forested June shadows
cold and alone and bluish in the light.