FAR NORTH
Sun's down
like summer and fall before it.
Bare oaks are now night.
Ice jangling pines are now night.
The moon rises
but what's it the answer to exactly?
Not a winter prayer,
by my reckoning.
I feel a pain that is not physical,
nor is it sorrow.
Cut off from whatever is good,
the heart sprouts dead fruit,
beats, stalls and skids,
like an old car in snow.
No birds,.
even the bats prefer
the empty bellies of their caves
to carnivorous wind.
The season impresses death
with its belligerence,
willingness to stay the brutal course.
And to think,
those of us
who will die someday
come here to live.