At the terrible mercy of so much
austerity, everything manmade
collapses—or else
hastily crouches to
simplify itself, like some
ungainly fraction.
No more jingling sleigh bells
or mottled Appaloosas—only
the simultaneous contraction
of all the quiet, snowy roads
and all points of time's circle joining
and compacting.
Even the dazzling smokewhite
of daybreak and the shimmer of yellow-lit,
late evening windows
are, here at another
bleary year's end, just as remarkable
as they are incidental. And yet,
what remarkable freedom
must exist
to be reached
now that all time and place
and every habitual
path we might take
have just been so forcibly
but mercifully
erased?
