Limited Creatures

He is an outlier as well for all I know, another seizing an opportunity
likely to be all-too-rare in weeks, as the ice lays claim to open water,
swooping down from his grey and bony precipice to grasp a remnant
(something left behind by his careless neighbors) and a shivering nod
toward warmer and longer days, the muted hum of slower waters.

There is cold comfort (the best anyone can hope for) in the notion
survival tests the limits of all God’s creatures, even those with razors
set at the end of their feet. This and the belief we share something,
if only the fact we are both here after all the others have departed,
testing our limits against some perfect storm of circumstance.

My hands burrow in my pockets as I lean into the wind, admire the arc
by which he returns to his jagged outpost to consume a moveable feast.
It is difficult for me to conceive of him as endangered, vulnerable
to the poison compromising the veneer protecting his offspring.
The trouble with me is a lack of exposure, too little time spent basking

(or better yet grasping) the brilliance and exhilaration lent by light.
I pay entirely too much attention to the cold, musing on the way
it consumes us from the ground up and exposes suspect foundations.
These days are too short. This sun is too kind. And I’ll shriek my song.