The weight of wet snow
on every tree
turned wide paths
into shining white tunnels.
Young trees bent over backwards,
impossibly.
Old ones leaned sideways,
grasping one another for comfort.
My boots sunk down and scrunched down.
Still, I jumped at sudden snaps when limbs broke.
Dozens of trees had to quit
this cold game of limbo.
As I walked the pearl gauntlet,
frozen branches slapped my face.
They stung
worse than nuns’ rulers.
I understood the branches’ rebuke
when I climbed the highest pine archway –
one thousand white-habited
Carmelites lay prostrate below me.
I was an intruder, an invader,
a despicable spy.
This was winter’s
most cloistered convent.
Sheila Wellehan’s poetry is recently featured or forthcoming in The American Journal of Poetry, the Aurorean, Menacing Hedge, Prole, Tinderbox Poetry Journal, and elsewhere. She lives in Cape Elizabeth, Maine.