—Of First Snow and "Last Things"

Any day goes gray, but only
a winter day so gray the scrim
of trees seems painted smoke,
those veils of distant snow

as still as this – the closer
snow – is slow and math exact.
A poem window in my mind
frames both for now:

a cold as old or older than
the sun – the fire-encoded ice
that waits to blaze another
round of days.