These cold conditions
That swell and come
To seem the worst
Of age keep me from
That false hag fame
I was hot to mount
When I was young.
O my brother, remember North Dakota,
The nights of angular snow, the drift of
Snow that rose until it reached our window-
Sill, and then rose slowly up the glass; below
Its fuming surface, visible through the glass,
The quiet crystals— glittering, blue, serene.
Remember the ribbed trough of ice that guided
Our rocketing sled down past roots, stumps, stones,
A culvert—you on the bottom, me on the top, knocking
Your breath out—down the steep bank to the uneven flat-
Lands of the frozen lake below, skimming across its ripples,
The sled slapping down hard like the hull of a light boat, taking
Us far out onto the lake, farther out than we should have gone,
Then slowly slowing to a stop. In its white center,
                                      Silence.

                                     Spring,
The dry and transparent air. The buffalo grass we pulled up from
Around the rabbit pen, the way it squeaked in our hands, a green
Sound. Remember Mary Liffert, the widowed neighbor who
Made us kneel beside her rocker and pray The Hail Mary,
The dignified rock she adopted while we did, the lodge
We made by tunneling under the pile of brush, our talks
Beneath its network of limbs, then silence, your back-
Lit eyes absorbed in a conversation beyond me, quiet,
Serene. You. O my brother, remember North Dakota,
The glacial boulders piled up in the shape of a boat,
Visible above the waves of wheat, sailing—Where?
Out of North Dakota, out of that country, out of
Childhood to now. But O my brother, above all,
Remember these small beginnings, these
Crystals, or I might have invented our love.