Silence in the Snowy Fields: Poems

A MAN WRITES TO A PART OF HIMSELF

A MAN W R I T E S TO A P A R T OF H I M S E L F What cave are you in, hiding, rained on? Like a wife, starving, without care, Water drippingfrom your head, bent Over ground corn . . . You raise your face into the rain That drives over the valley — Forgive me, your husband, On the streets of a distant city, laughing, With many appointments, Though at night going also To a bare room, a room of poverty, To sleep among a bare pitcher and basin In a room with no heat — Which of us two then is the worse off? And how did this separation come about? 36 ...