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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_ojOSHowRA

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Finally, a clear night -  

Finally, open skies - 

Finally - 

Finally -   

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The trees are smaller, here, 

The horizon line hangs lower 

Than it does

In other parts of the world.

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Snow covers everything; 

Moisture freezes instantly:  

The breath in your beard, 

The fluid in your eyes,

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In your nostrils, 

On your lips …

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All instantly, frozen. 

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The woods are expansive; you can see 

For miles - you can see swaths of open ground -

A lake, a clearing -

All virtually untouched,

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Not a track, 

Not a footprint,

No saws running in the distance, 

No motors competing 

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For but another empty-space in the road - 

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Crystalline, untouched by man.

Of all its overuse, its emphatic 

Peppering 

In a million hyperbolic poems, 

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That phrase befits these colors,

That word suits these lines.

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Crystalline,

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Windswept, sun-touched - 

I see Fibonacci in the curling breeze

And the glimmer of innumerable, 

Tiny precious-stones -

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Snow-flakes, microscopic

In their symmetries 

And radiant 

Beneath the beams of an open sky.

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At night, on those rare occasions, when 

The overcast has given way 

And the moon has silenced

The dirge of its reflections,

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The northern-lights come out …

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Breathtaking 

In their spontaneity, 

They paint the cosmos

In a distant, swirling green - violet,

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Mauve - 

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Unpredictably close, you can see them moving, 

Kiting the stars 

And dancing atop 

The streetlights and lamps

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Of old, discolored buildings,

Thoroughfares, 

Churches,

A school.

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I was in Dawson City

When I first saw them close like that - 

And when I did

I felt a long-faded memory 

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Bump, roll over, 

Raise its head:

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Snowflakes, streetlights, 

Aurora borealis,

A fur-lined hood

And the quiet, onset 

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Tranquility 

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Of a world that was just drifting into place, 

In perfect silence, 

Puzzle pieces into a painting 

And christening 

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A small pair of childish boots, for the

Brief moment that they'd paused there

And exactly

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where he stood.

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