a postscript forecast: freezing Snow mixed with a wayward Spirit

a postscript forecast:
freezing Snow mixed with a wayward Spirit

your Winter ghost stole into the foothills with last night’s West born flurry,blowing against the window and door sill,
slipping in with a feral cat, taming himself for canned wet food

what is it that calls you back for visits?
surely,
you are not hungry also

I have little left, save memories,
from those wild horseback days of revolution we shared:

a fossilized fern imprint you found,
a book kindly autographed by Dee Brown,

a Comanche loose fan of redtail hawk feathers,
it’s handle wrapped in cut beads which, even in this dusk of storms,
make the dying season’s light dance

and a black striped, red wool
English spun blanket with moth holes-

“the better to see through to the other side,” I laughed once

“with such trade goods nations fall,” I still hear you sigh

lifting it from the coffined, erstwhile drawer;
deep within an inner closet
on the north side of the house-
a fit place for the artifacts of the dead and a place for their shades to loiter;

I peered through, one more time, rubbed it on my face, inhaled it
and lifting it up against the window,
framing frayed-hole, weather weakened light

(Held now with aged hands-
just an off-Res Winkte dancing in memory’s magick)

but saw neither your present position and place,
or it’s solution…
nor my future,

though I heard a Snake dance song
and the Arbor-side trill of your voice against a now ancient drum-
but maybe it was just my heart,
remembering younger yesterday’s with today’s older ears