January’s
a Lake of Ice

January’s a lake of ice in suburb’s blur

The autos grumble east and west

Nothing stirs from in the nest

Each in a bubble laid to rest

 

The people next door are dead for all I know

Dead these several weeks dead beneath the snow

In backyards icy with hard smooth snow

There’s not a living face to show

For all these chimneys row on row

 

The dark is light because the earth is white

The streets are still save crack of tire on ice

The bare trees pine against a vacant sky

No human eye no human cry

To tell where all the life has gone

Or been or if it’s still within

 

This calm’s all wrong all winter long

This gravelike residential balm

This crusty cold around the fold

That lets no controversy sprout

No way to say what living’s been about

No sign of goodness or of sin

The ice is thin the ice is thin

ca. ‘75, rev. 2005

Copyright 1975, 2005 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission.