A Blizzard in Gold

The snow turns gold in streetlamp light
And I have spent too long tonight
In staring through a frosted glass
To watch a million snowflakes pass.

Out of the cold and empty dark
Each solitary snowflake- stark
And utterly unique in form
Is borne to light upon the storm.

I spot one of these newborn flakes
And try to chart what course it makes,
But it is borne upon a breath
That quickly speeds it on to death.

Instead I take a wider view
To see what ten or twenty do,
But even here cold chaos reigns
And I get nothing for my pains.

So now I watch the all in all
And see a mighty blizzard fall
In golden swirls and secret schemes
That tells of nature’s winter dreams.

The Storm of Grief

I sudden woke from sleep amid a storm
So terrible I never knew the like.
The rain was coarse with salt, to mar the form
Of all the Earth. Thunderbolts did flash and strike
And rend the death-dark veil of night, to show
A world transformed into a devil’s plaything.

I counted on the river’s even flow
From spring to sea. It burst its bank and brought
The flotsam of a ruined life to rest
Before my feet. Here a heap of sticks
That rocked us as I laid upon her breast-
All broken- past the hope of man to fix.

The sturdy trees of boyhood all are felled.
I thought them sure, immoveable, a fact,
But sea cold winds arose in wrath, and swelled
With terror’s might. They swayed and bent and cracked,
And never shall I see the saplings rise
To fill the place the ancients left behind?

My mind cannot escape the piercing cries
Of thunder’s loud lament. My heart is blind
To all except the blue bright flash of pain
That burns anew just as it fades away.
And then I greet the lightning as a gain—
For nothing do I want, but that this storm should stay.

I dread a peaceful morning most of all,
The victory of light and calm repose,
The dancing bee, the robin’s friendly call,
A pale blue sky behind a blood red rose,
The cold relief of nature’s waking song
That knows no fear or loss or anything.

The boyhood of my peace was very long,
I did not know what heaven’s bolt could bring.
How can I now enjoy the sacred sun
If still I feel the tempest in my soul?
Or worse! to find at last the storm is done,
That pain has fled and left me all unwhole?