The Ash-Blue House a Little Off Dark Lane   The ash-blue house a little off Dark Lane sits empty now, a hollow box behind a broken forest made of glass and rain.   A box of things undone, a weathervane we never quite set straight — how did we find the ash-blue house? A little off Dark Lane   it stood, sun glinting off the windowpanes, complete with our own woods — not yet unkind, no broken forest made of glass, and rain   nowhere in sight. At first we liked the plain bare walls, we liked the smell, we didn’t mind the ash-blue house a little off, Dark Lane   was just our little inside joke. The main thing was love and meadow grass and moonshine, not broken forests made of glass and rain.   But this was where the ice storm hit — in vain we longed for spring, but winter undermined the ash-blue house a little off Dark Lane, the broken forest made of glass and rain.     © Michael Fleming Brattleboro, Vermont October 2009