Act of Memory

I saw a hillside, at whose secret top
a knowledgeable cloud lay huddled up.

From far away I saw what I see now –
white ferns, white ferns of snow!

Such decoration showed a magic touch.
I saw some bare walls and a ruined church.

These pictures with good reason have remained
for days, spread quiet and still on memory’s ground.

Cast into one, the rock-slabs, and the dark-stoned
harshly simple walls, and the hill of land

fern-snowed-upon, its slope going up without end.

A picture of the mind.