Notes From The North

Light


The fields we travel are full of light
mellowed by stunted oak and berry bush
to the cutting light of dawn to dusk,
wait the dream I gather in hands of snow.

Dreams of summer moon and ebbing tide
amid ice flows grinding moan
seal and osprey memory run
down to a world so far from here.

There is no light this morning
only the haze of the ocean wind
there is no light among these oaks,
no warm within the sand.

Under the stunted apple tree
the deer have dug
the turkeys watch in groups of five
five for the apples
that remain on the tree.

Wood stoves are more than dead
when the fires burn out,
they smell of death, and damp, and warmer times,
they smell of the ocean and ebb tide,
they smell of memories, joy and sorrow.


--Winfield Sears Brooks, Jr.