I.
All day our eyes could find no resting place.
Over a flood of snow sight came back
Empty to the mind. The sun
In a shutter of clouds, light
Staggered down the fall of snow.
All circling surfaces of earth were white.
No shape or shadow moved the flight
Of winter birds. Snow held earth its silence.
We could pick no birdsong from the wind.
At nightfall our father turned his eyes away.
It was this storm of silence shook out his ghost.
II.
We sleep; he only wakes
Who is unshapen in a night of snow.
His shadow in the shadow of the earth,
Moves the dark to wholeness.
We watch beside his body here, his image
Shape of silence in the room.
III.
Sifting
Down the wind the winter rain
Spirals about the town
And the church hill’s jut of stones.