I remember the pain of winter nights, While my room was warm and happy. I remember the sharp brittle air, And the hard cold nights That pressed like cubes of ice Against my windows. Every day can be a winter night, And strengthen the summer of my room, To hold the warmth and happiness As the winter’s held in me. Distant height was a pedistal, An invisible glacier of air for clouds of frozen tear drops Looking down on tiny rows Of tortured streetlights illuminating The snow-plowed curbs of streets. They looked down on houses Set in a rectangular array, On mine enclosing warm and happy air, And myself with soul and body, And eyes holding all the mind sees, Seeing all the mind holds. I remember the pain of winter nights, While my room was warm and happy. I remember the eyes that cried The high frozen clouds of tears, The tears without which The eyes would never cry. Every day can be a winter night, And strengthen the summer of my room, To hold the warmth and happiness As the winter’s held in me. The jagged air was gaseous ice Moving from the distant lake, Twisting the screaming lines, Battering the poles and deadened trees, And blasting mindlessly on howling houses, On crying winter nights. It seized frozen snow in gusts, Helping swing the streetlights, Jerking shafts of light That moved silently with the darkness Cutting through the moving air To glance off cold streets and snow. I remember the pain of winter nights, While my room was warm and happy. I remember my eyes, the light, With the light of people I knew, And out our windows we came To glance off our streets and snow. Every day can be a winter night, And strengthen the summer of my room, To hold the warmth and happiness As the winter’s held in me.
January 1971