Dreams of a Heaven

I stand amidst the tall pine trees
that dot that bouldered landscape,
buffeting one other,
like soldiers propping their
kindred buddies, swaying
beside the mirror-lake, perfectly calm, still.

No carp or trout glides
underneath those grey ripples.
My arms stretch out to touch the
December sky full of
cumulonimbus clouds, soft, puffy, fluffy,
clumped like cotton candy,
white, like those from my childhood.

The clouds part into iced
stalagmitic archways
and make way for the crystalline
glint of morning sun
shedding fractals of winter –
alluring, inviting, beckoning.