Vision at Franconia
by RALPH SCHNEEBAUM
WINTER, and through the snow
The silent girl brings gifts of glass
To that one soul she loves; all of her
Is frozen round her eyes, and whether
He is dying, or alone, lost in some chasm
Where the mountain fell, we shall never know:
She looms, passes, and is gone.
All that is left to hurt the sense
Are footprints that evaporate like ghosts.
I have heard the skiers say,
“She is a poor man’s daughter,
She is a nurse, she is a mad girl
Spinning in the snow, she is a shade
That vanished here in a torrent long ago.”
Some chuckle, others do not know.
I do not know.
I have dreamed it was for some mortal love
She bore these gifts, eyes burning
In the clench of cold; then I became
A ghost, and hoped it was to me she brought
Her flame; my voice has echoed back
Within the many seasons, calling her
By many names; I shall never know,
But remember only how those bones of glass
Carried the translucent image of her flesh
Along the endless mists, and ways of white.
The silent girl brings gifts of glass
To that one soul she loves; all of her
Is frozen round her eyes, and whether
He is dying, or alone, lost in some chasm
Where the mountain fell, we shall never know:
She looms, passes, and is gone.
All that is left to hurt the sense
Are footprints that evaporate like ghosts.
I have heard the skiers say,
“She is a poor man’s daughter,
She is a nurse, she is a mad girl
Spinning in the snow, she is a shade
That vanished here in a torrent long ago.”
Some chuckle, others do not know.
I do not know.
I have dreamed it was for some mortal love
She bore these gifts, eyes burning
In the clench of cold; then I became
A ghost, and hoped it was to me she brought
Her flame; my voice has echoed back
Within the many seasons, calling her
By many names; I shall never know,
But remember only how those bones of glass
Carried the translucent image of her flesh
Along the endless mists, and ways of white.