An Early Snow and Winter Comes into Kilter

An early snow and winter comes into kilter.

                                   On the tomato vine

                                   I seeded too late in summer,

and forgot in its window box,

now no more than a gaunt thrust of green,

one stunted fruit hangs

                                   fixed in the glazed

                                   clutch of glass on sky

like a lizard in aspic.  What to do with it?

So arrives the season of last remains.

                                   A lone goose paddles

                                   panicked circles in the town’s

ice-rimmed pond and will not trumpet into the jet

stream.  A mouse

scrabbles around my pantry

                                   since the yard went hard

                                   with frost.

There’s a cat in the road that doesn’t move.

                                   But isn’t this the

                                   old song and dance

of the diminished, of the less and less?

How tiring it’s become: the seasonal blues and whatnot.

                                   Still, I am happy here:

                                   day cycles into night,

a single thought in my head:

white snow whitens under moonlight.

                                   Dear Reader, rise now

                                   and come to my window:

the only one at this hour lit. 

I live at the noble end of a poor street.

You’ll know it when you see it.

                                   Come quickly. 

I have something for you.