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.
