Frost at Christ Church Meadow

The cow pasture flooded and froze.
Over its milk glass rink, two crows
drift to a pine,

catch like origami paper. Leafless
oak veins steam: auras lift
an opaline

flue to the altostratus. Benches
bleach in the frost, icicle fringes
still pristine,

yet every footfall breaks a plate,
and scimitar edges tessellate
the grass (still green).

Thumbprints thaw the windshield ice
whose crystal nexuses devise
a dense star chart,

while the cow pasture, thinner at noon—
delicate sheen, scarcely known—
breaks apart.