Life seems to have left us, left the Earth
Without a tell tale footprint in the snow;
Gone overnight, with not so much as a hint
As to when it will return. These trees
Once vibrant with the richness of leaves
And the songs and color of the birds
Are nothing more than pencil lines now,
A charcoal sketch of stands of oak and beech
Whose leaves have withered and fallen,
And we can't even see them under all that snow.

Yet there is still light left in the sky,
Light like the light we see in stained glass windows,
Not quite moving, but telling a story,
Like the bright glass between the black lines
Of the lead tracery of patterns,
Patterning itself perhaps after the patterns
Illuminated in those cathedral windows,
And even more brilliant, more expansive,
As though making up for the lack of movement
And the sounds of life
By holding out a hope for us,
Defining a place, a music, a spirit
Still carrying the light of life along with it.

We stand here as if on the threshold of something,
One foot left in that silent stillness,
One foot stepping into the space of the light,
Watching the light reverberating and expanding,
Breaking like a wave on a shore we haven't yet seen,
Shaping dreams out of what look like clouds,
Catching this color and this movement
As the wings of birds catch the wind.

Burning there, between these lines of trees,
Like the flame of a spirit rising from the world,
This light catches our eyes, catches the imagination,
Lifting us with it out of the frame
And into the endless freedom of the skies.

And off it goes, westwards, slowly,
Passed the treetops reaching after it,
This flame, this fire in the sky
Casting its wavering shadows over the snow
And slowly burning down, down
Into the last embers, the warm glow,
Going softly like a dream
Before giving out to the pale, cold, stillness of the stars.