Winter Poem by Charlotte Ballard

Crunch of ice, muddied by passing cars
Cats step careful, marking a passage
With four corner paw.
Sparrows scratch a line grown long
Black speckled seed spread by a blue
Vein hand. Trees, naked and cold,
sheared closed.
After moms twitter to button up, please.

Soft white sleep, echoed by the black
Blanket deep, a path wore down
To the bare bottom ground.
By a screeching wind, with red mitten
Children building forts in the snow.