Winterlude

Summer of Falling Stars

Alpine meadow dances and laughing we join.

Flowers riot and tyrant clouds deny
Shadow-sun-shadow upon their pleading faces.
So little time, so little time,
Then the snowy kiss of death.

A brook chuckles by, joining our mirth,
But soon a silent ocean destiny.

Birds look in, curious and indignant,
Hunger-proud and leery, unaware of human desire,
And their own southward urging.

Long shadows march and die to alpenglow,
Herald of another day, another summer gone,
And the rose-tinged prophet of our parting.

Tonight, one last darkness, midsummer-brief.
The light of distant suns close age-long journeys in our eyes,
And falling stars, the showy suicide of dust.

Long past now,
That summer lingers -
A star-white trail across
The dark expanse of memory.