The Garden in Winter
Abandoned. Bleak landscape of pale hills and lowlands
grey, rust, dun – dirty snow piled up, mounded, where
slant-angled sun can't penetrate that spindly crowd
of pines. In bare places mud stands inches deep, relic
of repeated thaws which fail, yet, to unlock hard frost
held fast in the ground's heart. Grey, dun, black of fallen
leaves, aspen and poplar, slick with mold, papery
as pages of old newspapers laid out for mulch.
Rust, the grape holly, rust, dropped needles of jack pine,
thick woody detritus of cones plucked like petals
by squirrels alert on stumps, watery daylight warming
them in their diligent hunger. Granite boulders scaled
with lichen-shroud, that rough lace ruffled ash,
flame orange, intricate threads of umber.
Under February's ice, rosettes
of knapweed and mullein, fern-feathered yarrow,
sweet unruly tangled mortal green:
mosses' squishy velvet swollen with desire,
lifting tiny mousetails, fairy cups, stars.
B.J. Buckley is an award-winning Montana poet and writer. Her latest book is Corvidae: Poems of Ravens, Crows, and Magpies (Lummox Press 2014). Read more.