The snows of time

The snows of time,
a sharp blizzard of hope and memory,
drift across the ribbon of life’s highway.

The vast prairie of the mind
touches a new horizon with every moment
and encrusts a new footprint with every thought.

Seasons quilt the hills,
a stitchery of fresh and brown,
warming stone as it erodes toward sand.

The cup of earth
sways beneath the ocean’s heavy brew
as the magnetic hands of moon and star hold us all within.

We are vast creatures, we humans.
Touched by cold and crisp mists of endless space.

We are vast creatures, we humans.
Prevented from either dirt or star but much alike.

We are vast creatures, we humans.
None too small and none so large that one is greater than the next,
for not one can measure the infinite within which we are made.

We meet first within the caverns of the mountains
and second along the slopes toward the sea.

We meet again along the journey ’cross the seasons of the grass
and glimpse each other through the blizzard and the rain.

We meet as we wander the banks of flat rivers
or explore the spongy fingers of the delta near the sea,

And we meet once more in fresh waters,
turned within the change of brine.

Breeze can be the only wind a man will ever feel,
while another is seared by broiling desert,
another cut by hurricanes of torrid summer;
another by the crystal’d air of tundra winter.

Our life?
The mirror of our walk through time.

Brian Hayes 2000