Can't think of anything but this winter darkness

Settling around me like snow.

I know, poems aren't supposed

To begin like this,

They ought contain roses, or a bird

Rising from the branches in spring.

But I'm thinking of spruce trees

And a skete in Alaska,

Where the winter darkness radiates

From a wood stove.

The heart is the window

Of a furnace, keeping watch

Over the nervous relationships

It remembers.

And I suppose, now that I think of it,

Prayers are logs

Waiting to be chopped

For a very cold evening.