Ash

someday this’ll all be ours in the light and the dark

and the ash will be ours too, and the smoke

and fire of the burning. The green will be gone

we will have died among the leaves of poplar

among the grey streams and the dreams of ourselves. 

Among yesterdays there we see the scent of pine

and the valor in the strength of arms or so to say, 

our air was fresh and our lungs strong and we were young

and innocent--there was the innocent urging of Thoreau 

in dreams we could not control. Last night there were wolves

out the window in the snow and I believe they howled a song

of loss intoxicating, hallucinations in the dark-- 

the way winter will catch its cold claws into the middle

of me and pull until blood springs out to say, wait a moment

I am not ready to leave yet, I am creating something

that among the us of the imagination is everything 

but when poured in the snow steams away into nothing.