weathering

icicles have started
growing on trees-they
coat branches with a thick
icing of celestial clarity and when
the sun rose, she lit them up
like a cluster of stars--a
milky way among us
sprung in this
forest of elms; glittering and
dropping they sway
with the wind, threatening us
with creaks and howls. the sky
is falling, i think! the sky may even
have fallen. the firmament, that heavy
space between above and below, is
crashing with ice that snaps
and snow that crunches--
this snow that keeps falling in the
thickest of bundles, the thickest i've
seen because when i tip
my chin up, the sky
is gone, out of sight--just
snow and ice
up there today.

dls