Somewhere in this silence
the beaver steals
white birch limbs
making use of the living
the falling, the dead.
My breath trails
in a halo of mist.
(Across the snow,
someone is speaking.
A wood fire is burning.)
I've been hunting
the secrets of beaver,
whose dwellings of twigs
can survive
both a free flowing
river and ice.
I wait
for a sign - thick
brambles, shorn sticks -
I know they're alive
just above the water,
interned with their young
where swimming,
swimming in a darkness,
they remain warm.
Holaday Mason has written two
unpublished novels. Her first chapbook "Light Spilling
From It's Own Cup" was published in 1999. She is currently
working in a master class with David Saint John.
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