Mind of winter

To newcomers and old timers on this blog, I post the following poem every year on what appears to be the coldest day of the winter. I first encountered this poem during a talk at a February sesshin many years ago. It was -24 here yesterday morning so I hope to God this is the right time for this edition.

The Snow Man

by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow,

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there, and the nothing that is.