WINTER SKY

                                                December 2011

It isn't communication that I seek with the stars
this frosty winter night;
no, it is being aware of their brightness
that interacts with what I reflect back to them,
a sky so full of light that it is blinding
to even the lonesome vine
that hides itself, darkly, resonating in harmony
as if firmly rooted in secrecy.


I etch this black glossy sky
into a German Expressionist woodcut.
A cloud of mystique appears as if prophesied.
The sun soon to create sharp contrasts
upon the sky, the animals with mixed feelings,
unfragmented like a mnemonist's memory,
like the stag that is said to love music
so greatly that they suffer themselves to be taken.


This, a hungered vision? Or, a dream
that is so whole that it bends
perfect rainbows? This sky
is as clear as the mental eye of Aeschylus,
the chill rising as I vanish in its magnitude
with an intuitive grasp, confirming
my course, floating delicately upward
like inverted flakes of snow.