A Handful of Winter-Gold

On the last day of November I went out in the fog.
Sorrow was my companion.
The River Columbia was greener than tears,
the oak woods were bare
and the hemlocks were black in the fog.
I drove through a land full of ghosts.

High in the hills the fog broke up.
Tatters burned silver in the inland valleys
under a low sun and a mackerel sky.
We drove through winter-gold pastures
drunk on sagebrush-flavored air.

I said, "Sorrow, why do you follow me?"
He said, "Because you forget
everything that is dear to you.
It passes into my keeping
and I remind you when the time is right.

"Some day when summer hangs green in all the trees
you will sell me your heart for a handful of winter-gold
or a coin-sized slice of silver fog
and you'll call it a good bargain."

In a high place where mountains peered over the rim of the world
and the cloud-shadows were so vast they had no shape
I turned to him in the booming wind and said,
"Old friend-- old friend--
remind me once again?"

Sorrow placed his hand on my shoulder
and in my ear he whispered
the Name of God.

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