After Storm

Was there a wind? Tap… tap… Night pads upon the snow with moccasined feet… and it is still… so still… an eagle's feather might fall like a stone. Could there have been a storm… mad-tossing golden mane on the neck of the wind… tearing up the sky… loose-flapping like a tent about the ice-capped stars? Cool, sheer and motionless the frosted pines are jeweled with a million flaming points that fling their beauty up in long white sheaves till they catch hands with stars. Could there have been a wind that haled them by the hair…. and blinding blue-forked flowers of the lightning in their leaves? Tap… tap… slow-ticking centuries… Soft as bare feet upon the snow… faint… lulling as heard rain upon heaped leaves…. Silence builds her wall about a dream impaled.