One must have a mind of winter.
Wallace Stevens
I have only the memory of the lake now,
of walking on its gelid surface, twenty below,
snowclouds envelop me, impart lessons
on my insignificance. The ice, two to four
feet deep in places, the dark slow world
underneath me, above, the white haze—
starlings, great blues, and the ghostly contrails
of sandhill cranes who have abandoned
the lake and its frosty beauty for the
California coast. Still, in my Psyche, I call
those birds and, like Echo, they answer.
Charlie Brice is the winner of the 2020 Field Guide Magazine Poetry Contest. His most recent poetry collection is The Broad Grin of Eternity (2021). His poetry has been nominated for the Best of Net Anthology and three times for a Pushcart Prize.
