The brook had been frozen almost everywhere Mounds of snow had covered the ice serene and cool as corpseflesh while quiet small sounds came from the holes where the skein of black water continued winding But now only the scraps and tatters of the snow are left on the banks and the water seems purged of darkness brighter than its winding immanence In the shallows where pebbles excite the current the brook is shaken like the quivering lightandshadow of aspenleaves or like the cadence of hundreds of migrant wings flashing in sunlight against the flow forever far from their nests and singing singing so pleasantly in their flight. 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...A PASSER-BY by ROBERT SEYMOUR BRIDGES TO NATURE by SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE THE BAYADERE by FRANCIS SALTUS SALTUS THE MORAL FABLES: THE TRIAL OF THE FOX by AESOP FOR A ROYAL WEDDING, 29 JULY 1981 by JOHN BETJEMAN A NEW PILGRIMAGE: 21 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT THE LOVE SONNETS OF PROTEUS: 67. THE THREE AGES OF WOMAN: 2 by WILFRID SCAWEN BLUNT |