Ithaca, Before the Storm
There’s a little piece of ice left on the trail -
- some frozen spray off this waterfall that
still hasn’t melted in the fifty degree heat -
- and it is January,
and the only sign that it is winter at all
is this ice,
and the fact that the trees
are just so many sticks,
leaves gone, waiting for spring.
It won't be soon -
we’re expecting days,
weeks of snow and cold,
no sunlight,
all the things that make winters in Syracuse
last so damn long.
Looking up at the bright blue sky,
at the last sun before the oncoming storm -
I grab the ice,
launch it into the falls,
plunge it
below the foam.