Ice On The Hudson

by Sandee Gertz

Just past the downed moss tree, fungal
white ribbons dance in sacred sequence

as I sit among all that’s fallen in the South,
to derechos, tornados,

thinking of how you said you wanted me
to see what you see: Ice on the Hudson

and a shadow cast across a sky
leaning into dusk; the shine of snow
on cobalt. And I do, on a walk

900 miles away – reading my lifeline
in the veins of a leaf, fossilized from Fall,
and in the mud-swirls from the latest rains

thinking of you there, your Northern gaze landing
on the river, far from our smoggy shared city
of bridges, your truck parked on a slant of dirt

I will always follow. Tell me: when your chest tightens,
Does your breath chill, exhaling the past? Or warm
as I inhale Nashville’s Southern mass?

Staring out to a lake where herons will not alight,
and sparrows flock toward the beekeeper’s hood.
As I take off layers in the sun’s fullness, does your ice crack?

I know you stay the day throwing rocks at aimless gray.
No matter how small you become, walking
away toward the twinkle lights of houses, home,

My eyes will always see with razor’s vision,
winter for you there,
And for me, spring.