Thoughts . . . by Mark Rich

. . . scribbled . . . scrawled . . . trimmed . . . typewritten . . . grubbed up . . . squeezed from circumstance . . .

Sunday, December 31, 2017

It Is Old Year's Day

And I have fed the birds their seed,
and fed myself some words, just as I ought,
with air at seven points below the naught —
for the thermometer is what I read —
or frost-lines written on the window panes:
lines written with the patience of the cold
upon a year grown blind and stiff and old.
Such lines should write themselves as the year wanes

on Old Year's Day ... how way leads on to way;
how after roads are two, just one goes forth;
whose land this is I think I know — so forth
we go through snowy woods, perhaps to stay,
or find white rest; and so on, and so forth,
writing and reading on this Old Year's Day.

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