The Only Difference

The only difference

Between what lies now

Below the hill and up the creek

And what lies on the lens

Of the soul

And mind of a sixteen year old boy

The only difference between

This folded green

Valley

Lumpy with trees

Of many shades of green

Not quite hiding a small

Twinkle of a light,

On the one hand

And on the other

A lamp in the window

Of the last homely house

The pilgrim’s rest

Deep in that other valley

The only difference is that

The light I see in the trees

There away in the shadow

Of a May night

Falling beneath the rivulets of retreating snow

On the gray and blue peak

Way up and back behind,

That light

Twinkles

There, and there, and

There, a hundred times over

But that other light,

Like a tiny flame on the lens of his eye,

That light Is alone and quiet

Where the May night’s shadow

Drops lightly

Into the deep valley,

And the lonely woods

Have the day’s last

And angled light

On their golden leaves

That shadow there,

In that place long away

And far ago

Is as lonely and quiet as a

Nightingale’s voice in a

Sky already

Filling with stars

The only difference is that

The one here is one

Of so many

The one there

On the lens

Of the young boy’s mind

The lens of his heart

Is only one, the only

Light

A candle on a stone sill

That listens to a wind

Whispering across its

Rough gray grain,

The yellow and orange

And blue flame

Wiggling

In the happy meeting,

Air and fire,

Two friends alone

In a wide and folded land