Along the denuded aisles a shadow walks casting no body bending no branch nor cracking one dry twig It sighs and talks or maybe only the bracken is mumbling in the wind nothing or no one takes the time to care The snow comes a few flakes unobserved then thicker softening the raw air almost as in the spring apple petals falling diffuse the sun but cold and with a tang of reality And though at first they seem to run him through and vanish on his tongue slowly he takes an outline and footprints show the passage he has truly made among the rubble graces brightening in the snow. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...TIME AND THE PERFUME RIVER by KAREN SWENSON A HILLSIDE THAW by ROBERT FROST TO THE EVENING STAR by WILLIAM BLAKE THE CROWING OF THE RED COCK by EMMA LAZARUS AN ODE IN TIME OF HESITATION by WILLIAM VAUGHN MOODY THE SEA by BRYAN WALLER PROCTER AUNTIE'S SKIRTS by ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON A SOUTHERN NIGHT by MATTHEW ARNOLD A SESTINA, IN IMITAION OF SIG. FRA. PETRARCA by PHILIP AYRES |