The snow that fell last night
has covered the brown grass, 
scars in the road where pot holes
were filled, the roof of the house next door
with its thinning shingles, worn black
by beating rain and
we sit here just looking
at that spotless expanse, as if snow
never shrank away in the sun.
As if our eyes would not grow tired
of pure appearance and might forget
the dented earth beneath.
Is it an intimation of paradise this
delight, waking to the world
immaculate?  And what of other 
transformations, after the snow 
melts and trees and lawns 
are green again?  Are these
Eden’s residuals, an act of mercy
to give us hope? Or are they
only the devices and desires
of our hearts?
                        

It drips from the roof
steady as an engine idling, 
a reassurance as of onions frying,
of radiators ticking, warming up
in a cold dawn.
There’s the faint sound of deer 
feeding on the buds of saplings
in the spring or the sound
of glaciers calving, ice waking
after endless sleep. And what of
the roar of an avalanche late at night
after the skiers have gone to bed
so tired they cannot hear it?
Perhaps the rumble 
of a giant dwarf star
collapsing in a galaxy 
a hundred light years away,
on earth no more than the rustle 
of the homeless man on his cardboard,
of sparrows finding a house, 
the swallow building a nest, 
where her young will crack the shell
of their silent world.