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...FIRELIGHT by KATHERINE MANSFIELD THE HEMP (A VIRGINIA LEGEND) by STEPHEN VINCENT BENET AND THE GREATEST OF THESE IS WAR by JAMES WELDON JOHNSON ASPIRATIONS OF A COUNTRY LAD by GEORGE SANTAYANA IN GRANTCHESTER MEADOWS; ON HEARING A SKYLARK SING by GEORGE SANTAYANA |