First Day of Winter

First Day of Winter

Daylight has peeled pale bracelets

into the bark of the dogwood tree.

My daughter boards a flight to Buffalo

taking her children to their roots for the holidays.

Congress has just passed a bill giving tax cuts

to those who already hold the country’s wealth.

Squirrels scrounge for black walnuts

buried in the corpses of the daylilies.

Outside my window a woman waiting for a bus

paces the sidewalk talking to the sky.

On a highway in rural Mexico

a school bus somersaults killing ten children.

I stare into space after  words

that disappeared from sentence I was about to speak.

In Norwich 600 years ago Juliana held a hazelnut

containing  everything that has been made.

I will never make sense of this life.