I am murmuring, running through, running through, a small river of things, snagging on roots, silting up,. . . kettle, notebook, earring, thought . . . A skim of ice frames twig and stone, but underneath the current tumbles forward, it chatters and swirls, it swings downstream, racing cloud and sun, all night long it complains and sings--

Today will be filled with small things: pie making, home tasks, desk work. It is hard to know what counts as important, yet the brooks keep rushing toward the Kennebec, the Penobscot, the Androscoggin, the big rivers roll into Casco Bay, Penobscot Bay, the Bay of Fundy, the bays surge into the Gulf of Maine, the gulfs flatten into the vast North Atlantic. It is hard to know what counts as important, but the names are a litany, a rosary, a shape, and there is nothing like a death to make motion feel alive.

Here, in the little northern city by the sea, our houses cling to the stony edge. Beyond us, water and water and water. I imagine snow falling into the ocean, sky and waves occluded, the repetitions of no-silence: splash and roar, endless sift of snow.