OK.
I've been writing some poetry in Alaska.
It's sort of difficult to go away from some place
where you lived all your life.
Yeah, I mean you guys can probably understand that.
Anyway, I got up to Alaska, and it's
taken a while to get a feeling for the area up there.
It's all surrounded by ocean.
I live on an island up there.
And I get seasick real easy, and I can't swim,
and I stay away from the ocean.
But the mountains up there, they have very powerful, beautiful
mountains.
And, I guess, I think of home when
I can look at the mountains.
So I've been doing some mountain poems.
And this is one of the first ones I did.
"Dark branches, dark leaves, snow deep in sky
that encloses the mountain.
The sun is hidden in green moss feathers that cling
to the gray alder branches.
On the mountain, within the endless white sky,
spruce trees entangle the snow, and only the silence
dances free.
By the time I wrote the spruce tree poem,
the snow winds came, and the mountain was gone."