WINTER SKY

Paul De Roux

Great winter sky, drowned, trackless,
         the image of our days in which we plunge
         morning after morning, in joy or horror,
         but mostly in the muffled evanescence
         of the spirit sleeping upright:
         no doubt one should not cast the stone
         at anyone-this would not merely
92 be unjust-but the stone you cast
         at others would blind you: the sky
so vast, so little of it seen-and trackless,
as if its purpose was really
to lose you within it: in works, in days,
in books, in faces, in desires
unsatisfied and satisfied,
in appetency and inappetency, never
reaching anything, hoping perhaps
to emerge one day behind the angel
brandishing his sword of flame.