Winter's tale

[vaneramos]

On the quilted meadow
from which a thick white coverlet
was lately drawn away
unmade by a sudden April sun
subnivean schemes now lie exposed.
Voles' corridors embroider the hillside.
Scant chambers huddle
among brittle goldenrod stems,
blades of dried grasses
barely sheltering the naked revelation
of winter spent carefully under snow,
muffled, small lives inaudible
but to owls flying silently
with barely a breath of wing
and ears tuned to a hidden scuttle
plunging, snatching squirming sustenance
from pure folds of frost.
The map of cold drama now opens
the tale of hope and despair
intense labour
long weeks of tremulous waiting
now given over
to a bare audacity of vernal panic.