Winter Wind


Ghoulish troops on winter maneuvers
ransack moon-still snow fields
leave in their wake
spirals of ghostly whorls
bending and twisting in dazed frenzy.

Unseen battalions swell toward swift assault
pillage trees, force branches to wail,
flog ice whips
against windopanes, clapboards.

ice-brittle warriors howl like coy dogs,
cry through cracks,
stalk and pace like hungry wolves,
they shove away shrubs
scour for openings
--one opening
to lay waste serenity,
to drop the dust
of another place
on my table.