When Mary Lou sent me this poem, the title reminded me of our trip to Alaska.
This is a photo of a glacier, a wall of white, taken from the deck of our ship.
This is a photo of a glacier, a wall of white, taken from the deck of our ship.
The wall of silence is most beautiful
but compressed like a Testament
at its most cumbersome best,
cool and yet cruel but neglected, it rules.
But why not the Human body, no fool
to such encroachments.
Which has a soul in it?
Snow is a welcoming fleece,
the trees naked without
its comforting coat it leases,
the streets which harbor dirt and disease
are snow driven now,
and the walkways which lead to the house
no longer pronounced with guidelines
so we can stay secure
behind its barriers
writing the poems
which will lead to serenity and a pensive life.
A white snow-scape so immense and consequential
as if it seems to cover the Earth
with its triumphant bloom,
like a opaque tablet ready to burst into view:
as if to hide the Despair ,
a whiteboard where nothing
but trees are scripted there, but
the branches are imprisoned now,
but how easily they escape the embrace
with just a hand hold to shake them up
or more direct, a stick
which makes short-shrift of the snow.
Would that it were so easy
to eliminate the body’s heaviness,
nowhere to go in the depth of it,
But skis have a lightness to them
flirting with the ground,
but never bogging down,
but snow-blinded and undermined.
How your life is illuminated in the sunlight,
but here it is absorbed by the white.
The abyss that snow is,
never at its level best
for it flirts with Death;
with only one misplaced stone defacing it
can create an avalanche
that scours the landscape;
or like a broad frozen desert
which inundates our lives
while we look for release
surcease of anguish,
but none is in sight
until the sanctimonious sun
climbing slowly in the sky ignites
freeing our pent-up body and mind.