North

Seattle #2 (2002) by John Scane

At a glacier's pace
then shall it be?
Waiting for the dripple drip
from icicles which guard my windows
Covered in frost that never clears.

I know about glaciers.
You just have to look at the map
to see the five sisters.
There is the power that comes
from something that barely moves.

Do you think
the earth beneath my feet
shall not be changed in an eon?
I know that I am made of dust,
But find it curious
that feelings seem to be composed
of radical particles
with half lives greater than
the age of dinosaurs.

I despise the snow.
I care not
that each flake is singular
I only know that winds help build
impassable drifts
And that there can be no magic
found in white.

At night, which falls too soon,
and lingers in the morning,
like an unwanted lover,
At night, you can almost hear
death howling like wolves
or when a chunk of snow drops
suddenly and all at once
from the limbs of the fir tree.

My palette is caked
with dried up colors,
long since used and discarded.
And all I do is look to the south
for the beating wings which never come.

09/13/2009