Creek Dream

When the winter creek gurgles, snow-hushed and ice-bellied 

I wonder if bear hears it too, but merry and sun-lit

as a summer-drift dream

mumurating in time to a leaf-dappled drum

silver-scaled and berry-thick

beneath a sedge-fingered sky.

I dream too, some days. Winter can break 

a warm heart, one clouded breath

at a time

especially by lifting it 

Up

until it grows 

mountain-sized, each cragged-ridge singing

of vivd-sweet-stains in a sunset glow 

of prim-simmon, lemon-plum and indigo-rose

as if every vibrant summery color

had not left

this world

but flows, lucid-bright 

in the rippled-season-light

of a dream.