Christopher Woods, The Yellow Curtains
Frost Forms
Heather Sager
Frost forms on the windows
of a country house,
when night has gone dark,
and there’s an icy, latticed beauty
that climbs and encloses, working
its steady growth of snow stitches.
I have wanted to be that frost.
Cold country afternoons,
people ditch the house for town,
and leave the chimney silent,
a smudge of dust on the floor,
as a whistle from the chimney
works on its choir of belonging.
I understand that lonely wind.
On spectral nights above trees,
an owl sits in a cranny,
orienting wise oval eyes above
snoring valley, town, and county.
He looks from a vertigo branch,
with a distant aloofness.
I have wanted to be that owl.
Heather Sager
Frost forms on the windows
of a country house,
when night has gone dark,
and there’s an icy, latticed beauty
that climbs and encloses, working
its steady growth of snow stitches.
I have wanted to be that frost.
Cold country afternoons,
people ditch the house for town,
and leave the chimney silent,
a smudge of dust on the floor,
as a whistle from the chimney
works on its choir of belonging.
I understand that lonely wind.
On spectral nights above trees,
an owl sits in a cranny,
orienting wise oval eyes above
snoring valley, town, and county.
He looks from a vertigo branch,
with a distant aloofness.
I have wanted to be that owl.