I
Snow, fresh, undisturbed,
drapes its canopy over
the barren-treed hill.

II
A bear lumbers forth
from his winter womb, warms the
frosted sun with breath.

III
Children surmount milk-
crates, fire escapes, to roof-
tops, bound across them.

IV
He drips cool drops of
watermelon seed in an
earthen eager mouth.

V
She sprouts sprigs of
leafy limbs, fed with the mulch of
ancient, relic minds.

VI
The fields yield a
glorious crop of skyscrapers;
a dry wind portents.

VII
Heat breaks like periodic
paroxysmal tsunami
on beat, black shores.

VIII
The bear seizes salmon,
leaping upstream, and paws one
into his maw.

IX
Ants crawl to harvest
wheat and heave produce upon backs
for their cellar stores.

X
Honey-dipped dew frost
crunches beneath deer hooves
stealing through the sage brush.

XI
Raked leaves and limbs
skitter off the fermenting ground
in the idle breeze.

XII
Soil -- lumped, hard-packed, and
cold -- pile behind the hole dug
deep into the earth.