Spring

out on the frozen lake,
somewhere between a beach and too far
away to see,
there is a brown thing
and a smaller, darker thing
beside it;
proportioned like a seated man
and his small, black dog
lying near him—
except, they’ve been there a week;
garbage, most likely,
ice-hut refuse, left to
find its way to the lake bottom
after all the huts have slid back to shore—
their true homes, where they
sit, shaded, through warm unchanging gestations;
nine months in leafy seclusion
between garage and hedge,
disturbed only for ninety short days
and long nights
of brilliant sky and distance

but what they leave behind remains;
a man and his dog.

ten minutes of nervous
ice walking brings them no closer,
and the slow heave of a lake’s
skin cancels ambition;
whatever they are, out there
beyond binoculars, they are alone,
but for each other;
unknown, waiting for spring

— JOHN DEGEN

(Originally published Christmas, 2000.)