144) Poem for the End of January

In the wind, the so-much wind,
call them a couple people in winter,
dark against the snow.

What has who they are to do with it,
this winter wind,
this calling them?

What has who we imagine them to be
to do with it,
in the elocution of the wind,

to speak the countable trees up and down
in a glaze of snow over ice,
without sanctuary?

As seeing is further surfaces.
And when it is done,
we all have new names.

What has winter to do with it?
What has the wind
to do with it?

This performance in pale hues.
Some calendar photograph. Some figures
in morning snow.

Which is dark against light. Which is
that I don't mean any of this.
It's winter. I'm reading from the script.

---John Gallaher