MORNING MIST

beyond its milky rim the field is dissolved.
a woodpecker's muffled yaffle
protests the silence which beads trunks and twigs.

this mute envelope
is winter's most delicate caress:
it makes everything into an absence.

it drains the colour, heft and tussle
of world: it denies world, world is not,
world was a failing work it has painted out.

a water-colourist
could not better its subtle splay of tones,
nor a poet be as deft at getting lost.