Overnight, eight degrees and a new inch

Of snow.  We used to walk here summers,

Though toward the end I had to carry her

Down the shifting slope of the cutbank,

My footing not much better than hers,

Sliding the last few feet into the stream.

Now the still, shallower pools are lidded

With ice trapping a bubble here and there,

A hibernating frog perhaps, or a turtle,

How enduring is something we do alone.

Where the spring rises between two stones

It trembles and tumbles over a little ledge

Into a deeper pool not yet frozen but not

Quite moving, and a gust of wind veers up

The stream and for a moment the water

Quavers and folds a little onto itself,

Reaching over its back like a dog licking

Her hurt haunch.  A year to the day,

A handful of ashes.  The water gathers,

Lurches up, topples over the ledge again.