New Snow

©  2016 Steve King

All rights reserved

i

We walked an autumn much in ease,

beneath the careless beeches, kicked their

discard fruits along the narrow hillside path,

and followed ‘til the lake rose up to meet us

through the trees. 

    And our silence pleased us so.

We passed the ancient fieldstone gate,

imagining some world that once had been;

all shadow and the hiss of falling leaves,

old lilac boughs in twilight nodding slow.

Caring little then for other things—

enough to feel the sunset at our backs,

to circle ‘round along a vanished path,

and brush our hands by happy circumstance.

No, nothing left to wonder of,

a surety to spare;

and we’d return by starlight if we could.

ii

You laughed aloud when,

in a moment that remains

all out of sense and time,

you described the fallen orchard grove

embracing its old earth.

I said you’d writ a poem there.

You fled the instant,

said you needed song instead;

but clamorous spirits gathered to the air,

intoning in another sort,

and only cold winds moved to answer you.

iii

We hurried, but the shades

of every autumn caught us up.

We held ourselves within a shield of vines,

listening for winds to end

as well I knew each moment must.

I strained for every incomplete echo,

the thread of any harmony at all,

a chorus to the gabble of disjoining thoughts

in search of quieter comfort.

I knew that shadows never could complete,

nor ever would the riddling wind,

become that song for you.

I shivered only when I saw your eyes,

still blue in fallen moonlight,

and white as a new snow,

as distant from all wanting

as yesterday’s desire.

You told me any pathway back would do.

iv

Were I to hold a moment long in mind

it would be something like an autumn walk,

the sunlight and the shadow all as one.

Before a thousand sunrises

had shaken us from dreams.

Before the cast of season’s end

could color all we’d seen.

Before the dark ecliptic track

had run to course

and left our days undone.

A new poem for the Poetry Pantry
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