Poetry Explorer


Classic and Contemporary Poetry


SONGS FOR A WINTER FIRE: 9. OF SUCH STRANGE STUFF by CALE YOUNG RICE

First Line: SLOWLY MY WINDOW DARKENS: EACH BARE LIMB
Last Line: OF NEITHER NIGHT NOR MORROW WILL BE AFRAID.
Subject(s): TIME; TREES; YOUTH;

Slowly my window darkens; each bare limb
Of the trees without is etched against the cold.
A moment since the day did not seem old,
Now it is creeping westward gray and grim.

Like age's very self it turned to go,
Clutching the dusk about it as a cloak,
Shuffling through fallen leaves of beech and oak,
With asthmic breath sighing into the snow.

Of such strange stuff is time -- that through the heart
Walks with uncertain step winter and summer,
Too slow for youth, too fast for age, that number
And number grows with every season's start.
Who is not hurried by it or delayed
Of neither night nor morrow will be afraid.



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