Nathaniel Hawthorne's dreams of New England
haunt America's literary soul
Chunks of ice slide down grizzled grey slate tiled roofs
sounding like the hisses of a condemning crowd as
the eerie longcoated Mr. Wilson walks by scaffolds carrying a lantern.
Disguised in winter's gloominess
trees of willow poplar elm await
like frozen gibbets.
Smoke from chimney's unholy sulphorous burning
scents the black still air with dull whisps as
Hester's hair wantonly spread across
crumpled sweaty pillows after adultery.
Street lanterns illuminate their incandescent victims
like torches of some threatening mob.
Vapory forbidding figures in apparitions of ghostly silhouette
stalk these narrow Puritan streets in cloaked colours of red and black
worn by Minister Arthur Dimmesdale.
An impailing doom of suspended knifelike icey stalactic visages
viewed from small curtained windows out of which everyone
silently and intently watches.
All these annual aspects remain
etched in our minds of perfect picture postcard flashbacks
Merciful New England winters
of a writer's happy youth.
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