--all this grief in Ireland.
This is set at the beginning of a new year.
Yeah, and it's a heavy snowfall.
I don't know if you ever--
do you know what snow is?
[LAUGHTER]
This is called "The Park Drunk".
He opens his eyes to a hard frost, the morning's
soft amnesia of snow.
The thorned stems of gorse are starred crystal,
each bud like a candied fruit, it's
yellow picked out and lit by the low pulse of blood orange
riding in the eastern trees.
But the snow has furred to silence, uniformity.
Frost amplifies, makes singular, giving every form a sound,
an edge, as if frost wants to know what snow tries to forget.
And so he drinks for winter, for the coming year,
to open all the beautiful tiny doors in their crackled layer
of frost.
And he drinks like the snow falling,
trying to close the biggest door of all.