for Ruth Stone

She lives in clouds on her cold mountain in
Vermont. Only Wang Wei has walked the mist 
beyond her cottage—solitary inn
of winds snowing down from the Gap, a fist
of ice punishing deer up on the rim
against the stars. Ruth and the deer don’t care.
They don’t eat much in winter. But the hymn
she scribbles on a Kroger bag takes her
back to a day in London where a hang-
ing spouse allied her to a Chinese monk,
who sang for decades in her ribs. The pipes
are cracked yet flame grins through the owls. A long
murder made her nun of wind and windpipes
laughing with ice and enemy of junk.