From What the Welsh and Chinese Have In Common

In White

We want to talk

about what is

not there, even

as the snow seals

the dry grasses,

even as the moon

livens the mirrors

of ice and the ground

outshines the sky.

What pines reach for

tonight, we turn

away from thinking

the snow has brought

them low. Now the road

is equal to forest

and the pond's bank

is obscured by ice.

Looking down,

we lose our edge

and the complex

voices that hold

off sleep are blanketed

under the smooth roll

of white. There may be

another story in this

water's life. It could

have run with deer,

the wildfire's heat

drawing it up, the wind

rich with the dust

of Mexican soil taken

it inside the heavy

cumulus. When it was

a river I could say

it sang and no one

would ask what I meant

but now in the upended

night I hear into

the distance: Someone

wonders about the end

of nature, toil

of workers, unworthiness

of love. Someone

says we are all

slaves to something,

to some one no longer

here, some time

we would relive.

Some one says imagine

we are really one,

the creation of our

own single mind.

Tonight the moon

finds me--one man

muttering out loud;

his shoes buried

among the fallen

bits of cloud.

Paul_Jones@unc.edu

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