But for the pheasant’s coppered wing the fields
in sculpted snows ne’er bring the promised yields
nor pleasures found ‘til light does crest the rise
at dawn and ambers claw upon the eyes.
To wake and wonder here among such things
as iridescence glides there down and brings
unto these smothered lands and frostbit hands
a hope that winter’s scoff no more demands
from me not more than glimpsed resilient ties
to he that over this bleak barren flies.
Too rigid for grain and verdance yet come
these fields offer naught but stubble and numb.
But warm the harvest of winter is found
in the wings of pheasants coming to ground.
Image: David Wirzba on Unsplash
Sweet and Bitter Greens 