There resides a craft inherent in working words. A whistle, a wink. Akin to stringing pearls, or working gemstones, care to enhance the natural beauty, what do the words intend? Each so individual, turned this way and that beneath a jeweler's lamp. Such is the running course of poetry, droplets on a spider's web.

Sometimes word craft is like farrier work on a racehorse's hooves, don't cut too deep, but make the edge clean and sharp and intended for speed.

Sometimes it's a stranger proposition, finding words to indicate the intangible, similar to the shadow and motion that blur the distinction between rock and water, or the thick white steam escaping from the black slick streets that pave the connections between dream and hope, similar to the hushing sound of falling snow.

It snowed last night and at 3am the whole world was brilliant with reflected moonlight, silent and muffled but the stars danced madly. I didn't stay outside long in my bare feet but long enough to breathe long plumes in the damp air and think about the connections between things, made much more apparent with a blanket of snow. It comes unbidden like a dream of joy or desire dressed in white, unearthly and blessed. Our house stayed warm because he made a fire and let the oak logs burn into the night, and crisp buried coals still burned this morning, ready to be rekindled.