Vol 3 No 1 2009
Winter Review
Content, the last of his hopes lapsed
he stands outside facing the truth
hearing a distant train through the snow’s muffle.
So many snowflakes, so many seconds.
These flurry in his mind, heaping
into a vast shape, a burial mound
or the cliff of an iceberg
the summit unsighted, unreachable.
Past dreams crowd its shadow
yearning ideas, impotent stirrings
ice floes moving along a channel
in orderly slow procession, carried
from darkness into further darkness
with no sign their order might break up
or that one day, many years ahead
this darkness would give way to light.
Their passage does not sadden him.
Unsatisfied dreams rise and fall
crying out against the dark’s implacability.
He is glad of such order, such destiny.
Saved by this knowledge, the heart
the will, and all that made for protest
can at last sleep.
Ian C Smith