Classic Poem

Awake to the cold light
of wet wind running
twigs in tremors. Walls
are naked. Twilights raw —
and when the sun taps steeples
their glistenings dwindle
upward . . .

March

slips along the ground
like a mouse under pussy
willows, a little hungry.

The vagrant ghost of winter,
is it this that keeps the chimney
busy still? For something still
nudges shingles and windows:

but waveringly, — this ghost,
this slate-eyed saintly wraith
of winter wanes
and knows its waning.