All winter the bears have been coming down
from the higher forest.
We watch from the porch lit by kerosene.
They nose at trash, at frost-bitten pumpkins,
then vanish into pines.
One stood upright last night,
sniffing the smoke from our chimney,
I could have called the forest guard,
and they’d scold me for feeding it.
But I remember how he looked –
thin and confused and like
my grandfather begging for warmth
the winter he died by the stove.

By morning, the news speaks of another cold wave.

The water’s off again.
I fill a pot from snow,
and sit by the small lamp, peeling an apple.

A pigeon perches outside my kitchen window.
The white ring on its neck - yes, that scar,
the same one my brother had from shrapnel.
I bring bread to the window; it ignores it.
Tilts its head and knocks the beak twice
against the sill.

The deads are punctual.
They arrive exactly
when there is nothing left
to distract us.

In our wind-furrowed,
stone-quiet village, the old ones say —
Spring is for the impossible green; the birth.
Summer is for ripening, and the quarrels of the living.
Autumn is that yellow bruise before darkness.
And winter is when they all come back home.

[Editor’s Note: Publication of this poem was made possible by a gift from Abigail Boyle Smith during our annual fundraiser.]