Summoned from ancient days

a shaggy tarantula

patrols the earth and takes a stand.

And a spider white as

edelweiss hides at my window

that overlooks water.

Wearing long fur coats the four leggeds come:

an electric fox with chestnut fur

has left his den

to share his warmth

for I'm frozen to the bone.

Animals arrive with hollow white hair:

 mountain goat, arctic hare and polar bear--

spirit me over a frozen landscape

farther than the human eye can see.

The wise eight-leggeds, the four-leggeds

comfort and teach me in a

land of sleet and snow.

Encouraged at last, I draw a circle

around the Pleistocene

and it retreats leaving a pleasant landscape

pot holed, folded, silted and graveled, filled with

kettle lakes, gushing streams

and five Great Lakes in its wake.

Trees spring up and great mastodons

graze in green meadows.