Crossing
A lid of flawed white hides the purple river,
Raging slowly under its clouded cornea.
The blackness below the purple,
Sunlessness, seeps through the dilating cracks.
Ice is a ground window
Down, observatory to the grave.
Winter brings sterility in cold,
Grey numbness in negative space.
Its hoariness or fresh wild lace
May crust this river bank
Or pass across its cracks pale barefoot.
I am told by winter’s soldier that there is no Spring
Across this treacherous trapdoor Jordan,
Beauty tips and is lost in its annihilating depths.
But I have smelled life mingled in the ice-fumed air,
And the purity of it calls me to cross
To meet my master there.