If I Were Young Again


      Piecemeal summer dies:
      Long winter spreads its blanket again.
      For ten years I have lived in exile,
      locked in this rickety cabin, shoulders
      jostled up against the open Alberta sky.
If I were young again, I'd sing of the coolness of high
mountain snow flowers, the sprinkle of night glow-blue meadows;
I would dream and stretch slim fingers into the distant nowhere,
yawn slowly over endless prairie miles.
The grassland is where in summer silence grows;
in the evening eagles spread their wings
dripping like warm honey.
If I were young again, I'd eat pine cones, food of birds,
share meals with wild wolves;
I'd have as much dessert as I wanted,
reach out into blue sky, lick the clouds off my fingers.
But I'm not young anymore and my thoughts tormented
are raw, overworked, sharpened with misery
from torture of war and childhood.
      Inside the rush of summer winds,
      outside the air beaten dim with snow.


1985