Wintering Over

A chill wind prepares the land for sleep,
snow-weighted clouds brush golden
stubbled wheat fields and bare clotted earth
laid out in heirloom patchwork stitched
from lean and bountiful years, hand-quilted
like a mother’s lovely, unfolding dream.

Poplar trees with eerily uniform trunks
arranged in perfect symmetrical lines, resist
strictly enforced conformity, their flaming
arms reach for each other, tangle and entwine.

Here, good souls touch down
like wind-blown seeds from distant lands
of sunlit love, fading purple twilight
and midnight blackness, gently
settling in fertile, protected hollows
where possibilities rest and winter-over,
awaiting the time to wake and begin anew.