big tree

the cold snap has ended
the saw remains broken
for another day
the teeth need filed
and the bar was smoked
trying to cut a grandaddy tree
who must fall to feed
the hungry stove,
warm the wife and kids
this is his eulogy
a fine spruce, a corner tree
with a lean,
why did i not
choose another
there remains a small gash
in the armor
my tracks have been squelched
by a new layer of snow

monday morning late november sunrise

bow before the sunrise
in the still of winter
everything is zen
the frost, the chill
the loneliness
the barbarisms promoted
in warmer, holier
lands
and the cool protest
of winter birds
so tiny
they surely must freeze
but in the the cool fog
of morning they
sing thier glistening song
a whisper, a shiver
tracks in new snow
I am not the only creature
who has passed along
this path

slumberful sunday and the new snow

once again the silver and monchromatic
ridgeline crisp beneath dusk
clouds pregnant with a new snowstorm
today, out of synch with the tapestry
walking beside my shadow
hovering above my body
distant like the moonlight dreamer
and the ony metaphore
that comes to mind
wallace's black birds
but this is the hundredth time
they visit me daily
--i like the king of birds
sending out my eathly prayers
heavenward in a cackle of maddness
the season looms gloomily
i wish i could postpone the holidays
until I finally succed at freeing myself
from the slumberful coccoon of sadness and retreat
my walls are covered with childrens pictures
my shelves are filled with books and paper
stars and birds and flying girls
outside are bikes, skies and stubbornly frozen volvos
today i missed breakfast with alaskas poet lauriette
because the car would not start
life is filled with ironies
the silver spikes of ice
hang from the window outside
like an arctic jail,
i in the vaccume like jar
the frozen terrarium
and the world postponed
indefinatley
outside

clean like snow

and the snows arrived
with the season of diabolic darkness
the waning light cloaked
in grey and white
the lanscape laughing
in seasonal jubialation
the moonwas full,
the earth was crisp,
and then then tenor softened
each of the unmade
decisions, lay burrried
beneath the blurr,
no two are alike
this goes for
anything, no twopeople
no two foxes,
notwo sprucetrees
there is a quiet that makes
this world very unique
the world is orederd
diffferently with the presence
of winter
the winter is altered by the
thoughts of humanity
simmering in a warm stew of heat
cradling thier heads,
nutrturing the nocturnal dream

mask of transformation

masks of transformation
magic starman with feather
hands and eyes
The world of appearances
gone transparent, like a
shimmering fish dancing
across the minight
imagination
of the minds eyes heart
and then I realized
the nature of the psychosis
when the wolf becomes man becomes raven
becomes black swan or albino moose
wfhen hunter descends to the frozen lifelesss plateau
there is a crystaline structure
that speeds the molecular world up
while turning the metabolic furnace
down I dream a winter of darkness and
carnivourous bears
I dream a season filled with procreation
I dream of a sphere in which grouse and seagul,
wolverine and raven, orca and frog
all intertine even in winter
as frog lies dreaming in the frozen mud
I pilot my way home safely
beneath the full moon and sparkle of stars

ice song

full moon and 20 below
I live for nights
like this

crisp clear, static
electricity and the aurora
illuminating the frozen earth

only a few inches of snow
the soil will freeze deeper
creek and lake ice
growing daily
green trout beneath
the glazed surface

Once again I look inward
again I must stoke the fire
sharpen the chainsaw
file the axblade,
spilitting rounds of birch
and spruce, explosion
thunderous and dismantling
the rings into quadrants
which ripple telepathic
from the boreal forest

fox, raven, moose and owl

and beyond, spiraling outward
as a celestial emotion, to know
the bear and the archer

to sleep inside of the lunar lit quilt
smokestacks bellow a thick fog
into the valley
the dogs sleep curled in their houses
among the straw, evading the frost
tucking noses beneath wolflike tail

we are dogs answering each others howl
we are ghostwalkers trying to conjure
up a snowstorm, enchanted dreamers
slumbering warm coccoon, layered inside
the frozen orb

snowshoing at moonrise: Ester Dome

snowshoing at dusk
early november powder
seven inches of snow
i jog through the
equinox trail
over the summit
of ester dome into
the fresh darkness
traversing the ridge
down the mining trail
a few lights
of houses and smoke
along goldsteam creek
and further
there is Murphy dome
and moose mountain
over the shoulder
northwest, i survey
the icey sphere, loaping another half mile
beyond the marathon turnaround
warmed by an inner fire
like some mad trapper
or indonesian monk
walking in silk slippers
serene inside of the seasonal monsoon
I rest upon a sprucey plateau
zip my jacket
and adjust my bindings
i turn back
face into the wind
and begin the march
towards where I began
striding into the moonrise
gliding above the snow
half moon and mars glows red across the sky,
I trudge another
mile of ridgeline
looking down upon the glowing city
halfway between
heaven and Fairbanks

frozen blue moon

november sun burns
with a clear intensity
gradually weening us from daylight,
wrapping us in darkness
with a cloak of stars
as our nocturnal blanket
Ice conquers water
Fire feeds on boreal spruce
From isolation to infinity
the waves are squelched beneath
the arctic ice sheet
the waves are squelched
but the ice flexes
the world bends
beneath the weight
of the moon,
whose lunar light
has become our
winter sun
both wolves and men bathed
in the same blue light
there is a raven perched in
the dakness, he flies away.