The turn of events and seasons

have a ring to them

of casus belli kargyraa

and silvery moon dust

The day

just barely pulls itself

across snow-covered pastures,

like wounded soldiers,

residues of life

in it's pale Mid-December face

The windows shudder

with breathless calls for time

as the jet-fighters pass Mach 1

over the coniferous belts of Lapland

The planets are caught

in their vertiginous roundabouts,

the prerequisites of physics laid out

Sonic booms from ice-covered lakes

recall the dark barks of Cerberus at Styx

and the didgeridoos and bullroarers

of down under songlines

Spare thoughts are mistaken

for dangerous objects

by the righteous;

with transparent migraine mirrors

covered up by the rabbis

of Brooklyn and Eastern Europe

under the heavy breath

of sexual desire and multiculturality

while the piercing pinnacle plight

and gayety

of rainbow warriors

down under

raise tankards and laughter

under the ceilings of outback dance halls

The Elvis Presley motels

of the 1950s

and the self-conceit of the single-minded

are cracking up and laid waste,

proving history and truth to be but opinions

Crowds swarming the arenas

for late life Bob Dylan concerts

are brewing like rumours of war

and funnel-cloudy storms of the Mid West,

waiting for the Nth coming

of the messianic maestro

from Minnesota;

that clean-cut kid who's been to college too

I remember Yaël,

wonder how she is

Yeah, some of the people I miss

are way past themselves

and cannot be revived,

do not respond to duty calls,

no matter how hard I scrutinize

old diaries

What I miss about them

- what I lack -

is lost even to themselves

I'm too late,

they're beyond that kind of reach;

just dissolving contours

of names

and atmospheric flavors

in a bleak light

that is not of day

Passage is a dimly lit place

I recall one time,

a decade ago,

out hiking on skis

in Northern Lapland,

from Abisko

with Anna

in a southerly direction,

tense and nervous

in the wilderness of the April winter

at the first planned close encounter

with this lady, dearly desired,

my toenails black from rented boots,

face covered in black-and-blue bruises

from repeatedly falling over

under the unfamiliar weight of the backpack,

my equilibrium ill at ease

in an overwhelming whiteout,

when I suddenly sensed,

going down a slope, as I reckoned,

at breakneck speed,

that the snow felt impossibly smooth,

like I was suspended a centimeter

above ground,

until the mist lifted a little

and I saw, with a jerk

that almost hade me face down in the snow again,

that I was standing there, perfectly still on level ground,

hunched over, with bent knees,

like I was travelling really fast downhill

That's an illusion

life can sometimes provide

in this existential whiteout,

and maybe you recall that line

about seemingly being in motion

but actually standing still,

in Bob Dylan's Not Dark Yet?