Cold Hot Spring

floodlights cast an artificial sun on slopes voices of night skiers hang crystalline on still air steam rises all around me white fire on water shrouding the hot spring snowflakes ghost across aureoles atop black lampposts then are swallowed by the night or flutter down to the pool to instantly dissolve fragile petals on kamikaze missions I lean back face swaddled in the Hokkaido winter air neck deep in scalding water in a schizophrenic embrace by nature watching the snow drift nature can be hot and cold just like the way we treat it