Air

I thought it called for grandeur, substance, drama –
all its preternaturally swelling panorama –
blasting vastness to a tiny softness, like a feather –
surely consciously encompassing, the weather

offered an exactly correlating deity
for every human want, confusion and velleity –
angry gods, alluring goddesses all manifest
in every storm or blue sky – east or west –

and yes, especially, this blanketing of sleeting
snow today on all of New York City, greeting
eyes and hearts with hints in its congestion
of some answer without precedent: suggestion

comes poetically accessible in wetness, wind
and cold – the promised expiation of each sin
you’d thought could only meet an abject silence
and no absolution at the end: but some sad sense

dimly covering a grim and undefended terror
in your eyes makes silly symbolism cease: the error
stabs itself into the mind, is brutally laid bare:
to you the weather is no metaphor, it’s damned blank air.



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