Winter Oasis
It is snowing violently behind my eyes
as I try to sleep,
out there the dancing prairie falcon
is pressed into the ground,
the bright hawk
flamboyant as a kite in the sun
turns raven against the clouds
and the solitaire, a grey ghost
peers through the French windows to see me pass
and does not, and is at his most alone.
It is snowing behind my eyes
with more determination
than the snow shows outside: a childhood toy
glass ball filled with a city drowned in flakes.
The mountains sleep fiercely behind clouds
we wait for their liberation with impatience.
Soon, I will go down into the arroyo
lined with tall piñons where the owl
threads his secret way when I wake him.
I will be more asleep than I ever am
enclosed in the moving walls of dream
before the moments fall again, one after one,
glinting in sunlight, each one like a knife.
Osiris 22, 1986
Osiris Poetry 