Sonnet for Snow

In these woods, the mind turns to small matters, the eye turns to truer treasures: a mouse trail curving through the skim of snow pauses riverside, meanders on, lost to red-tail swaying into wind; a white pine drilled with Pileated holes. (We knock to make the red squirrel peek out, scold.) I shake the snow-webs free from spreading pines, and laugh as snow-spray coats you white, below. We chase our beckoning shadows, as we wind through stands of silver beech, a copse of snow- brushed spruce, great spires rising to the sky. Our breath soughs, forming patterns in the air, and words hang weblike, scatter, disappear.