False Warning

The meadow has lost its features and the grove
up to its knees in drifts is strangely still
after a season of seeing the fox squirrels shove
nuts in the leaf mold, after hearing the shrill
and bawdy japes of the jays, for a shroud of snow
like fire or flood or sudden desolate grief
has covered away the face of the land I know
under a mask as polar as unbelief.

Not that courage is ready to take to the trees,
nor the spirit retreat under a milk white fog,
knowing the trend of the seasons I know that these
thoughts will be scattered like beetles after the log
roofing their tunnels has rolled away, when the sun
say some day late in March when the buds are awake
and the maple sap is past the peak of its run
has filled the grove with creeks, the field with a lake.