Like a Zen sand painting, destined
to disappear, a work of art glistens
in the light of the sun as it rises
over the eastern hills, its light revealing
the scene so delicately etched on my window.
And it’s not enough that the frost sculpted
crystalline flowers and branches;
it’s made a shadow layer, too, a misty
mountain, rising beyond this meadow,
rainbow snow falling on its slopes.
Behind the frost, a shadowed hillside
draped in dawn’s blue and a matrix
of tree limbs hang from a strange,
foreign sky. Later, it will take on a magic
of its own. But in this glistening moment
it’s the frost that captivates and stuns me
with its unexpected evanescent beauty.