One Winter Day

It's been many long years since that day on my Wisconsin farm when I wrote this:

The winter trees are black as
Stove pipe on the winter blue sky

And mice, beneath the winter ice,
Are warmer than these January suns.

My snowshoes trace an odd duck's pace
Around the barn, then back

To where my crooked chunks of elm
Burn hot inside the stove.

I'll have a cup of tea now that I've
Mailed my letters.