Freedom

When it touches you,
send that unnameable sound.
Let it carry to us in sunlight
and shade.

Let it float in the sky,
a white cloud
so we can feel it,
being that whiteness
forming and dissolving
in silence.

Send it to us
in the music of rain,
the softness of snow;
in cold, crisp winds
and blue sky songs
of silence.

Deliver its aloneness
in spreading clouds,
soundless chiming,
always slipping away;

in dropping temperatures
and rising steam -
that warm, moist,
silent face;

in footsteps
where we lose ourselves,
finding nothing
again and again.

Show your hidden longings,
love with vastness.

***
Golden stream,
red tail cry,
silent friend
under a blanket of snow.
You brought a gift:
warm tears,
softening heart,
in this vast field
of pure white
and final rest.