Would-Land

5 am .  One-quarter past. Distant chimes inform me this. A bell peal knells the mist. And sunlight’s not yet bludgeoning. But some light gets blood going. Last night it was snowing and now every path’s a pall. Though mine the only footfalls at this hour of awe. Above hangs a canopy of needle leaf. Below, the season’s mean deceit— that everything stays white and clean. It doesn’t, of course, but I wish it. My prayers are green with this intent, imploring winter wrens to trill and begging scuttling bucks come back. There’s something that I lack. A wryneck bullet-beaks a branch. His woodworm didn’t have a chance. What I miss, I’ve never had. But I am not a ghost. I am a guest. And life is thirst, at best. So do not strike me, Heart. I am, too, tinder. I’m flammable as birch bark, even damp. Blue spruce, bee-eater— be sweeter to me. Let larksong shudder to its January wheeze, but gift these hands a happiness just once. It is half passed. And I am cold. Another peal has tolled. I’ve told the sum of my appeals. I need not watch for fox. They do not congregate at dawn. But I would, were I one.