Sample the Core

Mary Frost, one of Thunder Bay's best and best loved known poets, gets to the core of winter in a sample from the upcoming book Core Samples.

Weather Report
In these acres, I am the micro-climate
and the prevailing wind.
Winter's dreariness
started in my eye and proved infectious.
My skeleton informs those creaking branches.
My thoughts are silent crows manoevering tree to tree.

I will scrape winter off
as yesterday
I cracked the ice-crust off the car
when freezing drizzle coated everything.
Glazed road-signs with a saw-toothed lower edge
cut no ice with me.

I will go inward
where a sun-spark smoulders like fire in ashes
and come back singing,
carrying a torch for spring.
The red osier dogwood will flare and flame again;
the paper birch turn over a new leaf.