Winter Night in Rose Hill Cemetery

Barred Owl in Snow

Rubric for December

James Hart 

Here’s a nearby voice
among the prowling owls,
feathers of a noise.

Here lie moon bones
over glacial face of earth,
limbs in shadow tones.

Here is all you see,
stark measure of your life,
light beyond a tree.

Here stones know
weights of missing names,
cups holding snow.

Here red vestige blurs
black syllabic rabbit tracks,
a word of shredded fur.

(Poem from an unpublished manuscript
entitled In the Countryside of the Dead)

Great Gray Owl in Snow