Before the snow, the fear
of being homebound
with only my thoughts,
my brain overfilled with time
like too much fodder in the shock.
After the snow, the fear
is realized, the mind stutters,
eyes scour the same walls
for a change in landscape
when out of the tundra
comes the sound of nothing,
the distant buzz
behind the bunker of winter,
the pang of pins dropping
like long thoughts falling
into snowy stillness--
Phil Lane's poetry has appeared in various small magazines and online over the years. He teaches English and lives in Northern New Jersey.