Tracks in Snow
By: Virginia Hutchinson

In summer sunlilght,
I come upon a snowy field.
Rabbit tracks crisscross
and rise over furrows
blanketed in white.
I reach out, touch
the snow and see time
in a motionless march.
hands holding time,
holding each thread of snow
and each rabbit track
pressed into place.

The sun beating down
has not melted this snow
and the storms churning,
the winds rising and falling
have not erased the tracks.
Everything remains unchanged
the way a ferrotype
holds the moment.

The snow has browned now,
and the rabbit tracks remain
faded, folded and dormant
like the fields.

In Brierfield Park
By: Virginia Hutchinson
For EH l909 - l996

Trees stretch and sway -
black jack, white oak, sweet gum.
Syllables of sun
break through old branches,
erase the dark.
Leaves fall,
cut clear air into silence
while semaphores of butterflies
like the dead, don't hurry.
They move through the clearing -
leaves without direction.
A blue one passes the timber line,
crosses the dark hollow,
ascends toward infinite light
then diappears
into high, deep fold of morning.

The Moment
By: Virginia Hutchinson

We slowly sip the last glass of wine
by red tulips, which

turn to flags around the pond.
blowing in a gust of wind
too strong for a sunny day.
Sudden pelting sheets of rain
crack the still reflection,
churn murky depths.
Silt suspended breaks
the boundary and I think,
"How can this be?"

I turn toward you,
a chill rising from the water.
and see the moment
when we will not know each other.