Winter Watch and Other Poems by Daril Bentley

Winter Watch

I see now that those ash-mottled trunks of trees
in the woodlot opposite
are the grays and the half-grays
of misgiving.

All of a long afternoon
I have somehow found it pleasant to have been
sitting here sorting out
a black tangle of branches

scratching at the roof;
listening to the wind berate
the shingles
and the eaves—

recalling a love enwound
in these long dark locks of satisfied self-reproof
that shake out their brittle ice
and leaves.

I Hear Grandmother’s Needles Clicking

My sentences don’t rage or rave.
They sit quietly in a corner
and think
about whatever it was they were thinking about—

and about the corner.
My sentences aren’t lazy.
They just don’t see the point.
They think there’s too much on this active earth

that’s loud
and frenetic.
I hear Grandmother’s needles clicking
in the northwest wind

that rattles the few rusty November leaves
that hold on.
I let my sentences settle in.
I let them grab a hot cocoa or a coffee

and then slowly untangle this ball of yarn called
a world
such that one might knit a sweater
or a baby blanket.

World in Ermine

The world is in full ermine where I go
in snowshoes across the landscape.
Summer’s sullen stoat
takes on winter’s ugly challenges
in a pristine coat.

He knows better than I know
the pockets of corporate binges
and resource rape.
He’s just trying to get a living where
he was born and raised.

So much out here is so fragile
but has resisted, has endured abuse.
I imbibe the crisp air
and take the clear water from a stream
and I am amazed

at nature’s quiet guile.
The use, of course, is what’s the use
I reply to my cynical friend.
Sheep were Grandfather’s dream—
after his father and his father and his.

One must not be fazed.
In the end,
you don’t need to know what Is is.
You just need to drink
a time or two with frozen lips

from winter creeks
and ask yourself at your chlorine sink
what it is the ermine seeks.
Where August’s heated weasel sips,
sing what’s rightly frigid in your throat.

Daril’s latest collection, The Box, was published by Outskirts Press in 2021 and is available here.

Learn more about Daril on our Contributors’ Page.

(Photo: Vincent Parsons/ flickr.com/ CC BY-SA 2.0)

Introducing the 2026 Best in Rural Writing print anthology.

This carefully curated collection brings together outstanding essays and short stories that delve into the landscapes, lives, and voices of rural spaces around the world.

Available now! Order a copy here.

Author
Recent Posts

Daril Bentley

Daril Bentley is author of several books of poetry and numerous poems published in journals in the U.S. and abroad. He has been a semifinalist for the Yale Series of Younger Poets, a finalist for the New Mexico Book Award for Poetry, and recipient of an Honorable Mention in the Writer's Digest International Book Award. He is also a Black Mountain Press "The 64 Best Poets" Series author. A bird conservationist, he makes his home in Elmira, NY.