What I remember
Is—dusk or dawn

Of some December
That’s now long gone,

Snow thick, and flurries
Wafting, wind-whirled,

The sole stirring that worries
The woods’ dead world,

Their Anglo-Saxon
Wrought-iron dark—

That trickster-vixen:
Ghostblaze, her spark

From a thicket’s runes rushing
Like wildfire ignites

The icescape and flushing
Shadowbirds lights

That charcoal sketch
Of life aglow;

Peach suntints catch
Flame in the snow,

Green chant the pines,
Then all is lost

But dark tracks, hollowed signs,
Their quick gleaming with frost.

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This article originally appeared in The New Criterion, Volume 41 Number 6 , on page 23
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https://newcriterion.com/issues/2023/2/remembrance