James in January

James Schuyler, In January

"In January

After Ibn Sahl

The yard has sopped into its green-grizzled self its new year

        whiteness.

A dog stirs the noon-blue dark with a running shadow and dirt

        smells cold and doggy

As though the one thing never seen were its frozen coupling

        with the air that brings the flowers of grasses.

And a leafless beech stands wrinkled, gray and sexless–all bone

        and loosened sinew–in silver glory

And the sun falls all on one side of it in a running glance, a

        licking gaze, an eye-kiss

And ancient silver struck by gold emerges mossy, pinkly

        lichened where the sun fondles it

And starlings of anthracite march into the east with rapid jerky

        steps pecking at their shadows."

— James Schuyler, “In January”