Diego Isaias Hernández Méndez, Convertiendse en Characoteles / Sorcerers Changing into Their Animal Forms (detail), 2013, oil on canvas. Arte Maya Tz’utujil Collection.
The Guardians 2
The burn-barrel was too hot to touch.
Snow swirled around its base,
its girdle of rust,
covered the snow she shoveled
from the gravel drive
waiting for her father from the South.
I can imagine flakes
piling up the edges of paths she dug,
plummeting and wind-tousled,
driven to the earth like bees
at the beginnings of winter.
Robert Lietz has had poems in the Seneca Review, Rapport, Yes, and South Carolina Review. He also has a chapbook from Cellar Press entitled Side Booths. (1975)