Melting

Words lie like ice on sheets of snow

until a thought strikes with stylus newly whet

cutting quick as hot liquid can flow

through a web. Words, as needles, sew

with embroidered filigree, delicate

letters on lines of paper snow

a frozen page, crunching under toe.

At first glance, the starched sheets upset

melting tears over lies and uninspired flow.

Our hands hold pens when thoughts bestow

ideas' sweet clarity, but in blizzards must let

words pile over lined paper snow

fences stretched through fallow fields strain low

until spring's abundance washes clean the wire net.

But icy drafts still rattle vision's thin window

sketching the pane with slow

intricate drifts of frost, crystallized and set.

Thoughts freeze as ice against the paper snow

left for a blinding thaw to set in flow.