A Thumb's Length Landscape

Snow Landscape, in a Glass Globe  - by Jean Valentine

A thumb's-length landscape: Snow, on a hill
in China.  I turn the glass ball over in my hand, 
and watch the snow
blow around the Chinese woman, 
calm at her work,
carrying her heavy yoke
uphill, towards the distant house.
Looking out through the thick glass ball
she would see the lines of my hand,
unearthly winter trees, unmoving, behind the snow...

No more elders.
The Boston snow grays and softens
the streets where you were...
Trees older than you, alive.

The snow is over and the sky is light.
Pale, pale blue distance...
Is there an east? A west? A river?
There, can we live right?

I look back in through the glass.  You,
in China, I can talk to you.
The snow has settled; but it's cold
there, where you are.

What are you carrying?
For the sake of what? through such hard wind
and light.

               -And you look out to me,
and you say, "Only the same as everyone; your breath,
your words, move with mine,
under and over this glass; we who were born
and lived on the living earth."