The icy rain cameice covered holly

and covered all of creation

with a shimmering sheet.

Heavy under its weight

it bent

and then dripped

and then froze,

God’s great ice-o-metrics.

Fragile. Frozen. Frosted.

The snow cameicy feeder after storm

and blanketed the icy stillness

with layer

upon

layer of beauty.

Limbs bent

lower and lower.

I can ease their suffering and lighten their load with but a brush of my hand.

But then, so exposed, and so fragile, they would shatter.

So, I let them be.

Days of warming

will melt and lift

the bended to stand again.

Tall and strong

in the rays of the sun.