snowflakes land on the lake’s tongue
melting at the touch, like Host.
moments of grace: gust of leaves
startled from the ground like birds.
fragments of bark flapping like flags on a birch column.
soon cold will paralyze the water,
snow wrap it in grave clothes.
i wish i was floating in a painting by chagall
my hair weightless as clouds,
waving my angel feet at the trees below.
we would drift, you and I, singing in minor keys
like the geese crying their kyries.
instead we sit in the firelight
enclosed by candles, two saints
praying for light’s return.
Marianne Jones
Thunder Bay, Ontario