The acre shines white and cold.

The sky is lonely and immense.

Jackdaws circle over the pond

And hunters climb down from the forest.

A silence dwells in black treetops.

Firelight flits from the huts.

Sometimes a sleigh rings far away

And slowly the gray moon rises.

A deer bleeds to death softly at the field’s edge

And ravens splash in bloody gutters.

The reeds tremble yellow and upraised.

Frost, smoke, a step in the empty grove.