Plan of Attack

Best in these short days, where silence is,

and darkness lasts, to create little beginnings,

like the rustle of the mouse in the hedges.

Winter requires circumspection: small songs

can give immense colour to what has none.

Your masterpiece, that might be for spring:

to sketch it now is better than a fast intention

begun bleakly, which will reek of your rushing,

and have a sort of odour of winter’s despair,

a too rapid response to the exhaustion

which happens when the light isn’t here.

An auspicious day is coming soon.

Patience, then. Stretch the canvas, don’t mark it.

Be alert. This is the world about to undarken.