December Reverie

The fat waxwings in the dogwood,
sunning themselves as the temperature plummets.
One after another rises slightly
from the branch, then settles with an adjustment
of feathers. Is it in that moment of suspension
they reconcile to the coming of snow?
While you, with your preferences and opinions,
bargain for another week of peaceful weather—
removing yourself from what is, like the boreal lake
bleeding away in a northern forest.
A perennial acolyte, I take note
how the plump bodies fill with sun,
how none seem concerned with hoarding,
nor are they torn pages fluttering in a rumor of wind.
And how, inside the delicate frames, nothing
is falling from the tree and dying.