.

seen backwards, winter wears
a circle, claims a plane that waits precisely
in the round, floats up and down inside
a looking glass reflection flatly
filled with trees and sky, remains

minutely faithful to a seasoned
circularity and to its why, is bevel-bound
to face the east towards a lake,
a mirrored portal, dresser-propped,
and hinged to solid oak,

its grip is aging brass, its
round-rink surface contradicts
the upright depth of bushy
thickness stripped away
by january light,

is sky fulfilled by wooden lines
that taper to the test of moody
truth revealed in a bounce, becomes
a raven rising to the top, who flaps
its black to white, who caws and taps

from limb to limb with winged
declarations in prolonged suspension
of the space between each hair-like
twig about to give away its weight
to gravitas, til finally time becomes

a feathered float beyond the rim of
day-to-dusk that penetrates the frame
and disappears to some unveiled place
within the circle of a thought that lifts
away to icy moons and hovers

uncomposed by twilight doubt