The raw brightness

of blue air,

acuity of lawn

grass salvaging green

from a past exposed,

and luster of snow’s

blank white, tethering

distant ridge lines

brings force

to the great body

of reviving lake.

Water, broken,

pulls out from shore’s

shadow, along

invigorated

currents, flexing

the slow surface

light’s tips hit,

their driving

jewel-like

puncture wounds

bedazzling

the elemental

meeting place.

Across the bay

pines collar

an inlet of ice, 

its field upturned

like an erupted

heart’s.

In this orderly

change of season,

the tarried stillness 

makes me seem loud, 

thawed, even, 

to myself.

Illusions flit

easily across

the promise of birth,

though one can walk

its boundary:

dark rock outcrops

overhung

with cedars, gnarled

roots that nurture

mammoth icicles

and mounds glazed

with frozen designs.

Remote from new life

as a person’s

interior, cold

luster preserves

the sure slips ahead.

Martin publishes his poems and writing about poetry at www.alleybeat.blogspot.com.