Midwinter

M

John Unterecker

John Unterecker

At dusk, a great flare of winter lightning photographed the bay:

Waves were broken scrolls. Beyond Donegal, white mountains

hung in a narrow bas-relief frozen on sky.

Later, there was sleet: trees down

on the Drumholm road; near Timoney’s farm, a frantic goose

pinned under branches.

All night long, we spoke of loneliness,

long winter, while winter sang in the chimneys.

Then the sky cleared and a marvel began: The hills turned blue;

in the valley a blue cottage sent up the day’s first plume of smoke.

It gathered like a dream drenched in frost.

That should have been all. We had worn out night.

But single-file, deliberate, five heifers, a black bull, three calves stepped through the

broken fence.

They arranged themselves between the house and hedge: a kind of diagram:

a shifting pattern grazing frozen weeds.

Their image is with me still. The backs of the cattle are patchy with frost blue as

morning.

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