To a Friend About to Undergo Brain Surgery (2/2025)

Ice shackles the birch trees, clicking as it

breaks against the blue sky and shatters down

upon the egg shell of earth like a skull 

that holds a penetration of light in 

a cradle of bone which will  

not be out of control

but under such control as to be bolted 

down to a metal box which will keep his head still.

He sits still in the night

alone in a cabin contemplating 

the concentration of thousands of years 

of medical consciousness which 

will shrivel up a boulder of deafening blockage - 

blocking the music welling up 

dancing across the Heart Rose Community dinner floor as he plays.

The pain that blots out knowing

sits beside him in the snow.