Lines for Winter

Poor muse, north wind, or any god who blusters bleak across the lake and sows the earth earth-deep with ice. A hoar of fur stung across the vines: here the leaves in full flush, here abandoned to four and farther winds. Bless us, any god who crabs the apples and seeds the leaf and needle evergreen. What whispered catastrophe, winter. What a long night, beyond the lamplight, the windows and the frost-ferned glass. Bless the traveler and the hearth he travels to. Bless our rough hands, wind-scabbed lips, bless this our miscreant psalm.