winter winds blow in from the eastern mountains
thousands of trees are sparse and bare,
covered with white.
windows are decorated
with lacy garlands of snow.   like silken threads
the moonlight glimmers on the quilt;
written on silk are your letters
that you send to me in dreams.

since yesterday, the pines
have been heavy with snow.
"dark fragrance, sparse shadows",
west of the balcony railing
a thousand trees blossom with snow
like flowering plums.
your hair like snow;
midnight snow like blossoms--
in my ageless dream,
it's hard to know the difference.

the white sky
is throwing snow, thick and heavy.
one day of clearing,
one week of clouds;
in the snow, sparrows leave prints
then fly away.
if they hadn't left so hurriedly, i would ask them
" beyond this sky, is there another sky?"

this night of wind and snow
is my love poem.
come and embrace my melting, springtime look.
i love you ( there is no phrase to substitute.)
please take care of my worried insecurity
( it's an intimate gesture to hand it over to you)

i'll carry you into my home
on a ragged poem.
i'll carry you into my home
on the back of the neighbor's barking dog.
i'll carry you into my home on your sudden guilt
and my fiercely tender grief.

you are my migratory bird on the wing
coming from a dream
to nest in the snowy north.   you carry
moonlight, pouring a deep stream
into the moist look in my eyes.
we are a conflagration of candle flames
standing in the solitary night,
the quest of moths by the riverbank
where the wild goose spreads its wings--
our hearts are its skyward flight.

dawn will come running through the snow,
shaking the windows with it's loud light.
snow, like white doves, will perch on each branch
of the pines.  it is there that that the sun will strike
our loneliness down, the clouds will part
and mutter dark echoes.
our love will float among trembling flakes of snow.
on the bosom of the sky
will be thousands of roses,
a fragrance evoking a whole world of love
a sky beyond the sky.
your footprints across this great divide
of time and distance
will fade in melting snow.
i will walk
out of a pale half-seashell
and sing in the moonlight.
the sky will warm
and the last stars of winter
will glitter like fireflies
poking holes in the cold curtain of night,
then fade to dawn.
the sun, like a juicy orange
will drop into the abyss of your heart,
where rings of dew will shatter.

my silk quilt will keep out the cold,
your dreams and mine will take one shape.
midnight, two o'clock, four in the morning--
finally together, too overcome to sleep
we'll hold each other close
and listen to the wind, listen to icicles drip,

listen to the beatific sighing of the pines