Stanzas in Winter
Blizzards, thaw, blizzards,
yet all this even-handedness about us,
possibly delusion,
shy of absolutes. Cleft vision.
Walking the snowplowed roads
past the houses of neighbours
where living room lights burn all afternoon
and smoke slips out the chimneys,
there, in the blue heights –
is it the moon’s vantage we admire?
Digging the car out, each flung stack
of meringue lightness
gone into air. Another pause.
Any substance to the wind-carved drifts?
To ark-like wooden houses
battened down, serrated with ice,
dusk in from the sea? Since you ask,
surely. Winter darkness.
Light cones under the streetlamps:
a procession of rooms.