Dark Suite: Four Movements

I

Your face
came howling
from the nightmare dark
eyes screaming streams of cold light
like every balefire of hell.


II

The sparse scrubby brush
is no shelter in
this bare rock place
this desert
where there is no sand
only the icy touch
of wind's love
carrying a distant tang
of evergreens
too far to the south
and the bite of crystal ice
that must have shed from the aurora
because it so tastes
of the cold
of dark space.


III

The rocks are frozen
in the dark
the north wind
rakes its breasts and belly
over them
and bleeds down
into thin crevices
where I try to hide.


IV

In my time of healing
I remember
endless arctic sky
long thin clouds
like snow covered ice floes
floating
in gray whiteness.
Ice edged wind
drifted snow
against my face
hissed
as it caressed my body
whispered imperceptible secrets
through the dreams
of my frozen sleep.

When I wakened
the dim red rage
of a sunrise
flared through the gray
just beyond my grasp.