For our road commissioner on his retirement

How often sleepers wake to the distant din

and sudden, slow-approaching light. The plow

roars through our dreams and tucks us in again.

Visions of the night world dance with snow -

enchanted boughs and wind-invented drifts.

You engineer each answer to the season's

liquid challenges and gaping rifts,

calling for laughter mixed with vigilance.

Universal quirks and qualms respond

to jokes as well as level-headedness.

The roads you smooth and tend bear us beyond

impasses. On roads ripped from the wilderness

neighbors swerve and weave their lives together,

give or take the tension of the weather.

(c) Copyright 2000. The Christian Science Publishing Society