The Willows in Winter in the Boston Public Garden
In the sun’s white
In a morning ambience of milky blue,
Fresh snow upon the ground
And all around
All sorts of trees stand out
With a new
Spare
And alert air;
But from a nearby path,
The willows with straight, yellow, chopped-off hair
Look, to the altered view,
For all the world as if they did not care
How many sweeping winters they
Have looked this way,
Or how they have appeared before, their fine
Long tremulous veils of hair
Blown all one way or hanging heavy there,
Or how much longer now they have to stay.
In diffused light
In the middle distance in late afternoon,
The sky beyond as candid as the snow,
A show-through ochre haze
With, here and there, a thick deep ochre line,
As if the willows’ presence truly seen
Were but a fine
Discretion,
A matter of distinguishing degrees,
The differences between
A slight
Absence and a light
Presence
Or a deep
And deeper shades of golds,
Their interplays,
Interstices
Of lights and willow-shadows, opacities and sheens.
And at night
Close and starkly from below,
But with an upward gaze,
As within
The dizzy soul begins its own ascent, without
The clear-eyed wide repose it seeks,
Toward those high
Severe exhilarating peaks,
Marvels of unease,
Surprise, astonishment, and awe,
The eye,
Through thick and thin in black and naked lines,
Against that far-out crystal bowl the sky,
Beholds
A crazy any-which-way maze
Become a sharp and kind of counter outward daze,
As if the stars sprang from a stunning blow,
Startling the winter night
And dazzling snow.
