The moon
pours liquid beams
on hard white snow
that hit with a splash
then freeze
to nothingness
while the wind
laughs at pines
thoughtful
shivering
sighing for spring
leaning on hills
coldly defiant
guarding bodies
of dead streams
in hard coffins
They shot him as he left the house
And stripped him in the snow
But still he held the samovar
And would not let it go.
Who knows from what fine home he came
With afternoons at tea?
If I had been that lonely lad,
They would have shot at me.
For I’d have run as desperately
Behind some log to settle,
And sit me down beside my theft,
The big, old Russian kettle.
But dead he lies; the snow piles high
And winter fills the land,
And only spring will move the thing
And take it from his hand.
When Year grows old
its hair grows gray and white.
Then Wind picks up its giant scissors
and begins to shear it off.
So, as I told you many times before,
the white wool which during the winter
covers everything is not snow -
it's the shorn white hair of the old year.
near the bridge
the few old thistles
collect the snow
Early Winter thaw,
tends to reveal barbed wire.
The gravity of snow.
Wild turkeys walk
past the memory of snow,
this spring’s first bird.
Out the cell window
new year’s snow has melted
lazy bird flies south.
Another cold day
snow along the fence
escapes in the wind.
Troika, troika! The snow moon
whirls through the forest.
Where lamplight like a knife
gleams through a door, I see two graybeards bending.
They're playing chess, it seems. And then one rises
and stands in silence. Does he hear me passing?
Troika, troika! In the moonlight
his spirit hears my spirit passing.
I whip the horses on. The houses vanish.
The moon looks over fields
littered with debris. And there in trenches
the guardsmen stand, wind fluttering their rags.
And there were darker fields without a moon.
I walk across a field, bound on an errand.
The errand's forgotten — something depended on it.
A nightmare! I have lost my father's horses!
I walk along
the ridge crest
with nothing in my hands.
Where are you now?
and how is it
I am alive here —
as snow begins
to fall?
Snow plumed straight down
like river foam.
I knew where
the trees were,
loading themselves
with white —
but could not
find them.
Remember climbing to
the lakes basin?
How, rounding
that last bend, we
were hammered down
by the glory of
summer snow —
Even the gray jays
alighting on our knees
to seek crumbs
could not long bend
our eyes away.