frost , first snow: silentium

in the nights after full moon
grass and leaves and buds freeze,
first snow powders a white
into dark and then all

slowly disappears in fog,
mysteriously veiled,
an opalescent milkiness
where stars and ugliness

may be born and revealed
when the sun shines through
in the mornings to come
with the crowing of the cock.

there is mercy in fog,
in the hiding of outlines,
all sharpness forgotten,
a soft grace for my soul.

but there is danger too
lurking unseen, demons
and wild ghosts may come
through allees, down chimneys

the grimace of  torture
in a child's face, the murder
of souls, the slaughter of
all these wonders, of spirit,

the boredom of adult life,
flat emotions, contained
in garments of fear, in
systems of belief and doom

the devil of indifference
roasting small minds,
suspicion and intolerance
and lack of imagination

in all these  repressed hearts,
no sails of courage and hope,
acts and words all doomed,
we must set fire to masks

and it must be by the sword,
sword of light and love, because
without pain, without pain
nothing will open and grow.

nothing can be understood
when we avoid suffering,
it is there as we are
as real as must be,

as impermanent as all.
and though we kill each other,
we dance, we love, we seek,
we live: but now, but now

sleep will come, the grace
of forgetting, the rhythmic
cycles of  rest, beds
of flowers and release,

for a time, for a time,
preparing our death,
learning to let go
in the breath of wind.

silentium.