Bare Branches

"What would they say
if they knew
I sit for two months
on six lines
of poetry?"
- Lorine Niedecker

This stark room
how simple, they say,
they not being we
who know it's easy
to be florid,
not get
to the gut.

The bare branches of
the maple satisfy me.
Maybe by noon a bird
will perch in one
like a word on a blank page.
Soon, I hope,
the snow will come,
complete the landscape.

The snow is miraculous
every time it arrives,
like a poem.

— Stephanie Mendel