It seems days since we have seen the sun.

We sit, porchslick, in silver snow-scented light,

ice adrift on the sea; watercolour clouds

ravelling and rumbling across the sky.

Ice beads the clothesline, limns the dock’s

stone cradle, grinds against the shore.

We huddle by the fire at midday, reading by lamplight.

Winter is far from done. Still, we are waiting.

For what? Not for whispers or intimations;

not for inspiration, but for accident—

a slashing sunbeam or sudden warming current, neither chinook nor les suete,

but southeasterly all the same—bringing rain and disaster,

wind brutal enough to shatter so much ice.

As if we could leap over deep freezes yet to come.