Burton Road

This is the season

of microglaciers

gurgling in the stubble

uncertain surfaces

trenches parallel

and paired

fit cover

when Lilliputian armies meet

wet footed to glower

across a no man’s span

Blood of the maple

water thin

saffron tinted

barely sweet

pings in the battered pail

Alternately anchored

to the willow switch

bundled buds wait

on warmer weather

before bursting

while gimcrack mobiles

shiver on their aspen stems

and last year’s leaves

fencerow trapped

stammer in the breeze

Snow glares on the distant mountain tops

once an ocean bottom

then lifted to twice its height

this sunny day

its ledges glacier crunched

and boulder rasped

waiting patiently for fish to come again

to eat the mountain

plummeting from March

into the ocean