perhaps the brief hour

perhaps the brief hour
after the muzzling snow

when the hare and the fieldmouse
when the muledeer and cow

when the shovel and lake
when the walleye and shrike

when the coyote and phlox
when the owl and the hand

pause within the tract of it
It — that brief hour when

below every bush and eave
below every precarious drift

and labor below the curled
thrift of the marketplace

as the mountain bedevils
itself in cloud — It

that hour that brief sweet
hour when the fury of intrigue

waits perhaps hunched
and unwilling to break

such silence as this unwilling
to speak into that vast unbroken

Image: HARALD PLIESSNIG on Unsplash