Ice Storm

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Ice Storm
By Nancy A. Henry

I walk among them too cold to sleep
For the first time in my long years here
Sweet years in this country place,
Not a light in fifty miles
Except the moon and these cold ethereal torches

Through the orchard, through the back field.
Trees encased in mercury,
Deceptively lovely in the moonlight.

Bending over, they are agonizing
Within their glass capsules,
Their multiple silver arms
Creaking inaudibly to the point of strain

For a long stretch it is still as death
The eerie, airless landscape of another world.
I take a careful step, the sound comes,
The earsplitting crack.
The door-slam of a rageful lover
Shattering with the trust, the bright illusion,
Showering the midnight with it's glittering shards.

Another birch to take down in the spring
Another companion
Lost.