Winter Dream

In the upward drift toward day

eight lines of a poem simply there.

But without words. Snow falls at dusk

on a deserted airstrip bordered in pines.

The flakes are huge, barely frozen, frail

as ashes from a lakeshore campfire

burning half a century ago, now

descending. I pull the pillow

over my head, ask the remains of dark

to say more: has the plane left

or is it coming? Whom or what

will it bring, or will I leave?

I stand long on the runway.