SNOWFALL IN THE AFTERNOON
I
The grass is half covered with snow.
It was the sort of snowfall that starts late in the afternoon,
And now the little houses of the grass are growing dark.
II
If I reached my hands down, near the earth,
I could take handfuls of darkness!
A darkness was always there, which we never noticed.
III
As the snow grows heavier, the cornstalks fade farther away,
And the barn moves nearer to the house.
The barn moves all alone in the growing storm.
IV
The barn full of corn, and moving towards us now,
Like a hulk blown toward us in a storm at sea;
All the sailors on deck have been blind for many years.
-Robert Bly (from Silence in the Snowy Fields, 1962)
