In this extreme state of light
everything seems flawed: the streaked
pane, the forced bulbs on the sill
that refuse to bloom…A wad of dust
rolls like a desert weed
over the drafty floor.
Again I recall a neighbor’s
small affront — it rises in my mind
like the huge banks of snow along the road:
the plow, passing up and down all day,
pushes them higher and higher…
The shadow of smoke rising from the chimney
moves abruptly over the yard.
The clothesline rises in the wind. One
wooden pin is left, solitary as a finger;
it, too, rises and falls.
“Bright Sun after Heavy Snow” by Jane Kenyon, from The Boat of Quiet Hours. © Graywolf Press, 1986.