Black Notch in Snow

No one lights the lamps up here.
No one comes with a long hook
And a blue flame like a soul.

There are no lamps. Wires don’t reach.
Gas did not have an age here.
No one found gold here. Or tried.

There were no mines here, no pits,
No hey-day, no street shoot-outs.
At most, there was sun at noon,

And so no one built a town.
There was no stream with the strength
To drive a mill, no good soil,

No crops or fruit trees to bring
The rails this out of the way.
There are no farms and no roads,

No one herds their cows up here.
Poor grass and the cliffs are sheer,
So who would live in Black Notch?

You see that there’s one stone home,
And there’s one soul in that home,
Blue but here, light on the stones.

Still, it’s not real life lives here,
Just what you make of this poem,
Words whose blue light is our own.