"The Snow Man" One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time… - Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter.

One must have a mind of winter To regard the frost and the boughs Of the pine-trees crusted with snow; And have been cold a long time To behold the junipers shagged with ice, The spruces rough in the distant glitter Of the January sun; and not to think Of any misery in the sound of the wind, In the sound of a few leaves, Which is the sound of the land Full of the same wind That is blowing in the same bare place For the listener, who listens in the snow, And, nothing himself, beholds Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

The palm stands on the edge of space.
The wind moves slowly in the branches.
The bird's fire-fangled feathers dangle down.

Like a page of music, like an upper air, Like a momentary color, in which swans Were seraphs, were saints, were changing essences. <p> The west wind was the music, the motion, the force To which the swans curveted, a will to change, A will to make iris frettings on the blank.

It is not everyday that the world arranges itself into a poem.