Today is Water

Today there is water

Rippling across the ice

Glistening on the black road.

Today the sun slips

Behind the clouds,

Then slips back and floods the path.

Shadows dance on the snow

A shadow tree limb bends and

Touches a thick black shadow tree trunk.

The wind whistles

Across

The blank smooth white field;

Then poof!

A white phantom rises

And dances in the snow.

Today, the stream rushes

Under translucent layers of ice.

Today, there is the wind’s whisper

In the woods

That reaches out and touches my face.

Today there is water.

Yesterday was a gray day;

Gray wisps of wood smoke

Dissolved into a grayer sky.

A car shushed behind

Then shushed away.

The field of snow was mushy;

Even the woods looked soggy.

(A black phantom moved among the trees

And sent a chill of excitement

Up my spine).

Yesterday winter retreated slightly

In the sloppy face of Spring.

Yesterday water was neither frozen

Nor flowing

But in that mush time

Between,

That soggy limbo

Of neither/nor;

And so was I

Who felt as out of sorts

As that softening snow bank

Covered with road filth;

But today there is water.