A mass of downy geese is crowded round The broken center of a frozen pond. The sprawling slough surrounding them is crowned With cattails: woolly brown with tufts of blond. The valley's fields are mowed and topped with stacks Of hay now capped with tarps, bright blue and white. Between two plots, a pair of truck-worn tracks Runs o'er the stubbled hill and out of sight. Lined up, the barren willows blush with gold, And in their slender gaps are framed the far And hazy mountains, evergreen and cold. The morning breaks, and in its wake, its star Retreats from view until again the dark Descends to mark midwinter, bleak and stark.