Frozen rain and snow
Three inches deep
Not only the house is white
But all the world
Is white and black and lovely.
White and black in hard edged curves
Cruelly describe all the flowerbeds
And frame the woods and Road
And box the creek.
Two shades have written all the world:
The blanketing sky;
Huge white field;
Narrow rock lined path.
All things are eventually stilled:
Leaves of oak, blades of fescue,
Embedded grains of slate and quartz
And one or two free floating snow flakes.
Yes the world is written in sharp exhaustive clarity
The treachery of this hardness is such
That to move or to stand
Is to feel the impending fall.