By Buffy Calvert

Dick and Roger Liddle’s cows

silhouetted against the sky

on the hump of their hill

Discovering

the swinging basket of the oriole’s nest

in the bare tree behind the barn

Clusters of flakes

drifting from a cloud-shrouded sky

testing the still-warm earth

melting away

Scarlet maple leaves

against a saffron sunrise

Candle flames of larches

shooting up from

the “bare ruined choirs”

of leafless forests

New snow clotted on the garden

Like powdered sugar

on a still-warm doughnut