Fireweed

We saw vast fields of time's immortal flowers

Ablaze beneath the pale Alaskan sun

And stood on glaciers carved in primeval hours

Who watched earth born, destroyed, again begun.

We wandered there at twilight and I knew

This place my spirit recognized as home,

A world of icy splendour shot with blue

Surrounded by a sea of frozen foam.

White were the skies at the season's too-swift end,

The whales moved southward to a warmer tide,

If only once all time I might suspend

Beloved friend, eternal summer's bride,

I would wish this moment be immortal made,

And yet how can undying love fade?