by Carmen Mason
There’s a slight scent of first
snow coming through the woods
behind my house where years ago
I walked right after moving there
and found streams of celluloid
from the closed up movie house
tangled in the ragged brush
knotted round the rigid trunks and
holding some up to the icy sun I saw
frame after frame of naked women, men
little children wretched, posed
smeared now
with leaves and mud
days later I returned to find
glistening sheets of snow untouched
but for the V’s of tiny birds
frozen amorphous drifts bedazzling
some encircling the bases of the trees
cloaking all that lay beneath
as if these shrouds and
firm white collars of frost might
benumb and petrify, then turn
the world back to itself
when it was new
Carmen Mason has always written poetry and prose as meditation and to make some sense of things. They are a way to duel and dance with love and fear, joy and discovery.