To Waken an Old Lady
Old age is
a flight of small
cheeping birds
skimming
bare trees
above a snow glaze.
Gaining and failing
they are buffeted
by a dark wind -
-But what?
On harsh weed
stalks
the flock has rested -
- the snow
is covered with broken
seed husks
and the wind tempered
with a shrill
piping of plenty
The Desolate Field
Vast and grey, the sky
is a simulacrum
to all but him whose days
are vast and grey and -
- In the tall, dried grasses
a goat stirs
with nozzle searching the ground.
My head is in the air
but who am I . . . ?
-- and my heart stops amazed
at the thought of love
vast and grey
yearning silently over me.
Blizzard
Snow falls:
years of anger following
hours that float idly down -
- the blizzard
drifts its weight
deeper and deeper for three days
or sixty years, eh? Then
the sun! a clutter of
yellow and blue flakes --
Hairy looking trees stand out
in long alleys
over a wild solitude.
The man turns and there --
his solitary track stretched out
upon the world.
