After Storm
Lola Ridge
Was there a wind?
Tap… tap…
Night pads upon the snow
with moccasined feet…
and it is still… so still…
an eagle’s feather
might fall like a stone.
Could there have been a storm…
mad-tossing golden mane on the neck of the wind…
tearing up the sky…
loose-flapping like a tent
about the ice-capped stars?
Cool, sheer and motionless
the frosted pines
are jeweled with a million flaming points
that fling their beauty up in long white sheaves
till they catch hands with stars.
Could there have been a wind
that haled them by the hair….
and blinding
blue-forked
flowers of the lightning
in their leaves?
Tap… tap…
slow-ticking centuries…
Soft as bare feet upon the snow…
faint… lulling as heard rain
upon heaped leaves….
Silence
builds her wall
about a dream impaled.
