The leafless trees are feathery,
    A foxed, Victorian lace,
Against a sky of milk-glass blue,
    Blank, washed-out, commonplace.

Between them and my window
    Huge helices of snow
Perform their savage, churning rites
    At seventeen below.

The obscurity resembles
    A silken Chinese mist
Wherein through calligraphic daubs
    Of artistry persist

Pocked and volcanic gorges,
    Clenched and arthritic pines,
Faint, coral-tinted herons’ legs
    Splashing among the tines

Of waving, tasseled marsh grass,
    Deep pools aflash with sharp,
Shingled and burnished armor-plate
    Of sacred, child-eyed carp.

This dimness is dynastic,
    An ashen T’ang of age
Or blur that grudgingly reveals
    A ghostly equipage,

Ancestral deputations
    Wound in the whited air,
To whom some sentry flings a slight,
    Prescriptive, “Who goes there?”

Are these apparitions
    Of enemies or friends?
Loved ones from whom I once withheld
    Kindnesses or amends

On preterite occasions
    Now lost beyond repeal?
Or the old childhood torturers
    Of undiminished zeal,

Adults who ridiculed me,
    Schoolmates who broke my nose,
Risen from the black, unconscious depths
    Of REM repose?

Who comes here seeking justice,
    Or in its high despite,
Bent on some hopeless interview
    On wrongs nothing can right?

Those throngs disdain to answer,
    Though numberless as flakes;
Mine is the task to find out words
    For their memorial sakes

Who press in dense approaches,
    Blue numeral tattoos
Writ across on their arteries
    The burning, voiceless Jews.