Tawny-white as a ripe hayfield.
But it is heavy with frost, not seed.

It frames him for you as he sits by the window,
his hair white also, a switch of silver.

He pours you another glass of wine,
laughs at your shy anecdotes, quietly caps them,

is witty as always; glows as hardly ever,
his back to the rectangles of glass.

The snow holds off. Clouds neither pass nor lower
their flakes on to the hill's pale surface.

Tell him there is green beneath it still:
he will almost, for this afternoon, believe you.

DOWNSTREAM

Last I became a raft of green bubbles
meshed into the miniature leaves
of that small pondweed (has it a name?)
...