The Poetry Corner

After Storm

By Lola Ridge

Was there a wind? Tap... tap... Night pads upon the snow with moccasined feet... and it is still... so still... an eagle's feather might fall like a stone. Could there have been a storm... mad-tossing golden mane on the neck of the wind... tearing up the sky... loose-flapping like a tent about the ice-capped stars? Cool, sheer and motionless the frosted pines are jeweled with a million flaming points that fling their beauty up in long white sheaves till they catch hands with stars. Could there have been a wind that haled them by the hair.... and blinding blue-forked flowers of the lightning in their leaves? Tap... tap... slow-ticking centuries... Soft as bare feet upon the snow... faint... lulling as heard rain upon heaped leaves.... Silence builds her wall about a dream impaled.