The forest lands link earth with heaven,
spruce-tree tips like dendrites of elder earthen gods.

The long, dark, lonely winters swirl within
a song, the singer’s storm-tossed mind at odds
with frozen lakes, the fir trees’ needle-bed.

Moose-haunted evergreens stretch miles and miles,
and fallow fields will waken with the red
and purple flowers of the spring. The wiles

of ancient wolves weave through the singer’s song,
the howls primeval, blood-bonds mingling, strong.

© Thomas Zimmerman