Amber of Lights

Nine lights, and so little oil, remind us

To be frugal in seasons of excess.

Dancing, arms high, beneath a lemon moon,

Around the fires defining saffron rooms,

Listen to golden drums. Heartbeat patterns

Punctuate canary songs of bells.

Count your sheaves of children on both hands and

Just begin; scatter gifts like mustard seed

Among them all, straw heads and burnished dark,

Fallow hearts, precious for their quantity.

Wolverine plows the flanks of Stormy Mountain,

Cleaving new snow, chest high, her topaz eyes

On faltering elk. My season's talisman,

Her amber wake the light that paints the snow.

–December, 1999