Illustration by Blair Thornley

The sky this morning a great domed gleam-sheet
of obdurate obsidian, only blue. The fairy-skinning wind
snatches at rotten branches, makes tenacious oak-leaves
shiver. Air itself a serried file of whetted blades --
nipping bits from cheek, nose, anything exposed. Faces
glow like braziers to keep the cold out. Over my head
out of the blue the spirit of chill comes wildly clucking,
a ruckus of black, white, scarlet feathers -- one pileated
woodpecker on open wings exploding its own volley
of shrapnel, rising into a spinning globe of cold flame,
as brim-full of noise as a helicopter chopping frozen air,
then as suddenly -- was it there at all? -- vanishing into
absolute inhuman clean blue the mute sky is behind it.