Naming the Winter

Naming the Winter
a poem by Wayne Dodd

As far as I can see
the wood's a harbor, the trees
all dark anonymities against the snow:

white oak and elm and sassafras and linden,
pin oak and hickory, sugar maple
and sweet gum, nameless masts

and spars above an ocean of white, wind
along the surface whipping up and curling
the snow back

in light spray
above all those forgotten
ships, sunken in the earth

Beneath its glazed surface the tangle
twigs and sticks and lives make
jumbles

to obscurity. Aspen.
Ash Red Maple. Rock oak.
Robert. Margaret. James. Louise.