These strands of twisting wires keeping horses thereand me here is called a fence. Tears form and tearsfall from above and we call it rain. If it freezes,as it’s trying to do now, we name it snow, even if sunflares from the east as it does in sparkly postcardsfrom Colorado. And this patch of dead grasshurtling through time and tomorrow is part of a bluesphere we call earth. We rarely send earth thank-you notes.It is easier to worry about spiced tea and poinsettiasand our cousin’s accident and winter solsticeand a late mortgage payment and future orgasmsand where in the valley one can buy decent focaccia.My left hand is cold, my right hand colder,and I wonder how long can I lean on this fence watchingit snow? The wet stuff collects on the back of a whitehorse, a matching blanket. It falls too on the backof this black mare but immediately melts.This is how mystery and beauty collude, how weather,even the weakest trickle of sun, fills mewith questions. Tonight I will look at the sky and linkwinking stars into creatures and call it astronomy.And I’ll look inside and see more broken creaturesand call it middle age, call it longing, call it whereare all the sweet rivers I used to swim? I’ll talk to the darkI’m walking through and call it prayer. I’ll chewon it, sing cracked psalms to it, even cough it out,and pretend it has no place in me. But that’s for later.Right now, colors are streaming through this cameracalled the eye, starlings flicking and flirting, flappingand finessing. My hands are still cold, my breathvapor. I’m the only person leaning into this field,this story problem in stillness, one horse white,one black, a little snow, a little sun. How long will earthhold me in its tender mouth? I count backwardsfrom 100. An orange cat weasels by. Robinsscrap over a rosehip. I have no idea what I’m counting.