Winter Canto I

by Matthew Mulder

Some say winter

came not this year

and fall and spring

erased the thought

of cold and ice.

Nature�s cycle

shall play its own

music and make

all others dance.

We move to its

orchestration

and do not attempt

to reverse what shall play

and what shall dance.

Below Lone Pine Mountain

It is a sweet

sadness that seeps

through hemlock

at twilight.

Silence lingers

at close of day

before crickets

and mosquitoes

invade the space

between light and

dark. A death scene

rehearsed again

and again as

sun rolls behind

the eyelid of

Lone Pine Mountain.

Summer Canto

Glittering they fill

the summer air above a field

between a lodge and a grove

of aspen and pine;

sparkling in late afternoon

like fireworks.

We eat, drink and watch the nieces

and nephews play amid glowing bugs

at sunset.

Winter Canto II

Piano jazz plays softly

on the radio.

Outside wind howls

through pine, poplar

and oak trees.

A dry fugitive

leaf scrapes across

the patio like the sound

of skates on ice.

Hidden

in an envelope of music -

We rest.

---

Matthew Mulder is a senior contributor to an independent monthly newsmagazine, THE INDIE, a weekly contributor to Write Stuff (a Web log about writing), and had been published in magazines like .ISM Quarterly, H_NGM_N, The Blotter Magazine, Rapid River Arts Magazine and other small press publications. His poetry chapbook, "Late Night Writing", is available from Wasteland Press and Amazon.com. He lives with his wife and children in Asheville, North Carolina.

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