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We seem caught up in it, the lull of pure winter.
Crows in the distance, a chainsaw—life somewhere,
but not here. Not a single tremor in the shorn
saplings, not squirrel or beetle shuffling the leaves.
The prey are too cold to eat: mice, rabbit, vole
knotted up under shuttered rhododendron.
The owls and wild dogs will need something soon
but now, nothing moves. Time arrested. Love
suspended. Were a buck to step into this moment,
imagine the hysteria. But this desultory is to be
unraveled not broken: a single hawk swoops down
on a trembling pocket of fur scratching in the dirt
for seed. The ring slips down my cold finger,
a clattering on the floor, and finally you speak. 
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Wild Pigs