January: Year-day 24

                                           
                                                   
January: Year-day 24

And the delicate powdered-sugar snow,
sifted by the winds, floats like memories,
full of haze and distance; pulses like trees
on a hot afternoon; forms what I know:

In a three o'clock music, soft and slow,
I am a long-wintering hive of bees;
and the gossamer swallows at their ease
sparkle in the waves on my radio.

If I were to tell you again today
that tomorrow I would be leaving here,
what light would it gift you, though miles apart.
I had left you in a similar way
before, and later come back: pleased, tired, queer,
as curiously as: I do in my art.

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