Snowdrifts

There’s an unrest in the way
snow reflects the moon tonight,
as though it waits for the whorl,
the deep sweep down the canyon
pushing white carpet into tumbled trips.

Aspen have shivered off
the last of sun-denied color
and the thrust of naked limbs
bears the weight of cratered light.

A whitetail nudges her weary
fawn under a yawn of winter-frocked
pine boughs, ears northward,
eyes skyward, watching the Hunter
notch a diamond-tip.

The nose of night
smells mercury dropping
long before the Rockies speak
a whisper that will be wind.