Off to Work

Outside the oasis the cold burns

And time lies frozen like the mud

On the ground. Death rises from earth

Wraps his hands round the wind

And twists the air, grasses, trees

Into contortions.

Branches chime.

Industrial landscape of old buildings and roads

Turns madly  arctic snow banks melting

In sun's slight heat birth serpents and gouges,

Are gritty sculptures, razor edged, precise

In crystallization. It's still a vortex:

Inside every crystal lies a prism,

Sun catcher that cuts light

To its compound colors, makes

Death’s hand and breath to rainbow

Under the chattering wind.

Yet we all file, head down,

Bumpy black, brown, gray digits

In man’s hungry line, to weave, shove

Numbers and words that bite and fall

Through our fingers, our speech the drone

Of a million flies, our eyes on dead air, soaking

Up darkness like ashes.