Snow Walk

It gives us now a little guiding-light,
Like a thick midnight forest's silver birches,
Or sculptured saints in empty darkened churches,
Or a black cavern's sparkling stalactite.
It gives each path an unextinguishable light,
Like even unspoiled sand on stormy shores,
Or a dark deserted mansion's marble floors,
Or a black cavern's gleaming stalagmite.

No rays pierce through tonight from moon or star;
No lamps illuminate our graveled lane;
The glow is out in hearth and window-pane;
And at this hour you'd never see a car.
The only light is from the settled snow.
In this dark world it's all the light we know.

---

Mountain Metropolis

The country is a city too, you know.
The wild geese sound a lot like honking horns.
The logging roads and trails are all dark alleys.
The summer homes invite you in like stores.

You scan the leaves like pages in a bookshop
On trees you'd find in any arboretum.
A hunter's shot could be an engine's backfire,
And every yard's a classic-car museum.

Eat blackberries at the meadow's breakfast bar,
Drink water from a fountain, rest on rock
No harder than a park-bench. Then look up:
The time is told you by that shimmering clock.

It's just like having London for a day
All to yourself, or Paris for a night.
Put down your cell: take in its blazing tower!
The stars come on at once like city lights.

---

Nightmare

A little flickering fire upon a hill
We've had our eye on for a while, until
It suddenly decides to be our fate,
Jumping the road with no fuel but its will,
Expanding to be sure that it engulfs us,
The way a snowball grows the more you roll it.
Can you not sense how personal it is?
It's just for you, and you feel privileged,
For no one ever loved you more than this.
The fire does not incinerate you, though:
It sweeps you up into a safer space,
A heavenly zone above the hellish flames.
For nothing can kill us in our nightly dreams.
We go on as a soul . . . then wake with screams.

---

Birthdays

A birthday is an awful thing:
The less-than-perfect gift,
The multitude of candles
That prove you haven't lived.

They tell you that you're older;
You're older than they know.
And every wish you ever made
Is burning as you blow.

So blow again, until you spend
Your last and deepest breath!
Burnt wax and wick will make you sick
Like the waft of death.