Ages

Three men stood
on the shore of a lake
near the start of a river.

Things get confusing after that.

There was that one night,
In that blizzard. Light pulled away from the
library windows and piled up
against trees.

Steel mills came and went.

There were fires.

The sounds of unseen things
moving through forests
leapt up beneath strange stars.

The Burlington Northern
ran slow as sap
in a yearless autumn.

Dreams smeared together:
lightning took the maple
out front,
and we carried the
purple flash
with us for years,
across hard miles,
and dropped it
at the feet of three
men on the shore.

We were children,
and our children were fathers.

Owl-eyed moons
swarmed the end of the age.