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| A cold wind came between us. |
Around a wind-whipped fire we passed the bottle,
antelope leaping in the theaters of sunset.
A wedge of geese dropped out of a cloud
like the thin edge of winter over the plains,
and a cold wind came between us.
Snow fell through the steam of geysers,
flakes floating on her honey-colored hair —
this was the snow that would smother
the Yellowstone flames
as she lay in her bed with her children,
and I lay in mine alone, far from home,
reaching out for her hand in the West's tall dark.
How much can a man leave behind?
These days I awake in the tree-scattered light
of a spent life, the house empty and quiet,
rising from calm to fear and back again.
All you I have loved are alive in the dawn,
I remember it all, sometimes as a nightmare,
sometimes as a song. You'd think by now
I'd have the notes down.
