Winter morning from the third floor window of St. Paul Central Library

one of those waiting
when the doors opened
i hurried up
high as I could climb
for a view of the river

on this day
sun newly risen upon
high winter
three steamship replicas
first stole the view
iced in their berths
like the moment they were
made to represent
waiting still as
the river for the thaw

a long-haired old gent
in a battered leather fedora
walked up, reaching out with the
gentle cadences of his
conversation occasional caesurae
sprinkled in (he had just climbed
the stair)
talked of these boats
and how they must have
strong hulls--
and so his words went
slowly on

tracing along the ice
we came to the
billows from a riverside
building's heat plant
obscuring this rustic sleeping
water as though bearding
the cold a mere nuisance
like clouds of thought above
business people driving
to heated ramps insouciant

of the winter
that old man
reaching gentle fingers out
to the transients who had waited with me at
the door
softly pressing on the window
where i stand
bidding us come to berth
in its eternal pause