west yellowstone

snow brings me
to her whole sky

flakes
spread nets across the vault
spindling each a kaleidoscope

crystals swirling
to every speckled farflung
horizon

donating out of her washed
gray domes

falling to arms, eyes


trees
each needle speaking back
pulling strands of silver-lit hair
drawn for wintry ages

solemn rows of trunks, they summon
an army, self similar, growing
arching and sincere

blunted suddenly, subsumed
crisp green and breathing
resigned to slumber

calm
secreted from storms


clouds
churning, sliding into place
vast without moving, sentient
only half blindly to infinite forests
arrayed beneath her stature

swaying a wide embrace, lace robes
offered as one, mine, this
long snowy cloth to a panorama

white and frosted and transparent
as is any will to dress
freeing branches


mountains
are her lasting bosoms

towering and generous, quieting masses
urgent jagged lines softening
under open reaching sheets

tenderly draping
evergreen magnificence

together
a stony picture of breathless
unrelenting love

replenishing downward
fundamentally within
radiating a sacred silence

as she herself drops
holy pale bread to my mouths


snow
brings the same downy blankets
to fill in around us
pulling down our limbs, cold and grave

stilled pines
surrendering to darkness
taking our own smaller shape
to folds of her vast cloak, forcing
a hushed future

bowed in glacial worship

hewn, as my numb hopeful face
in the direction of a dampened sun