Winter Ridge

I walked the winter ridge

in summertime; saw the old guard

now dressed, verdant, a proud line

standing straight up to the heavens.

Their woody balm, pervading,

wafting dreamily in.

I took my sadness to the earth;

Remembered the colder days

I'd walked those same ways,

Swollen with the promise of spring,

blushing in a season of new love.

But all yesterdays had been discarded;

together, pressed underfoot,

the black of bygone, now the bed

of all tomorrow's promise.

With it, the forest grew, up and up.

August's sun gilded the river,

The sterling cliffs cutting down

to a wildflower cloud. I broke their stems

crossing to the shore, where golden waters

lapped tamely.

All these things, I knew without name;

their voices, the thronging of cellophane wings.

How I could have wept.

I stood before them, and pressed

The wound that gaped wide in my chest.

Newly drawn, its ends yet to be defined,

sorrow crowned with splendor.