Stay

A merlin grips the branch with a light
but taloned touch, unhurried like this season of ice and sky and mud
that squeaks and cracks under the hare’s quick feet, now peppered with gray
like the clouds spilling snowflakes, which drift onto me and the bud-bend aspen,
whispering a message that melts on our skin:
Stay, stay, stay.
Stay with this in between.
There is more for us here than you think is not.