Dave Bonta strings together eight small snapshots of a single winter day, and most of them come from close attention to the outdoors. The speaker wakes early with a twitching thumb, then notices coyote droppings on a snowy driveway, a coyote print inside a deer track, and rabbit tracks that vanish into a thicket. Even the sound of something turning over beneath the floor suggests an animal sharing the house. Nature here is always half-seen, known by what it leaves behind.
Then the tone shifts. The sledding haiku is lightly funny, since the speed feels oddly calm. But the seventh stanza turns serious: the speaker weeps at words like "transparency" and "the rule of law," which suggests a worry about public life, though the poem never says why. The last image, snow undisturbed on a statue of a setter at point, feels still and watchful. Overall the mood is quiet, curious, and a little uneasy.