The cold path up to shelter had lepered the travelers’
hands with blisters. What had looked black in
snowlight showed itself blood-red beside the fire.
The stay-at-homes had much to offer, but waited
on a dozing elder. The tired horses, jostling out of the wind,
bumped hollow against the outer wall of the room.
A child coughed from somewhere in a pile of blankets,
a moist warning cough, deep as a goat’s.
One of the travelers passed round a many-creased
likeness of a fully-appointed horse,
leaning in to tap horseshoe, saddle, bridle,
illustrating the last by snapping an imaginary twig
with his fists. His smile was fierce, his jaw still
clenched with cold, his thawing hands the color of horn.
The elder woke, clear-eyed, looked at each stranger’s face
without surprise. In an easy voice he said he had dreamed
their mountain was covered with ten thousand roses.
When this was translated for them the travelers
nodded vigorously and gave much thanks,
with tears in their eyes, with heads bowed.