It Was Winter Poem Rhyme Scheme and Analysis
Rhyme Scheme: ABCDEFGHI JKLM NOHPQRST UVWPW XYZA2B2 C2D2ZE2F2G2H2C2YI2WJ 2K2Z I2L2JYC2M2ZN2AO2P2Q2Winter came as it does in this valley | A |
After eight dry months rain fell | B |
And the mountains straw colored turned green for a while | C |
In the canyons where gray laurels | D |
Graft their stony roots to granite | E |
Streams must have filled the dried up creek beds | F |
Ocean winds churned the eucalyptus trees | G |
And under clouds torn by a crystal of towers | H |
Prickly lights were glowing on the docks | I |
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This is not a place where you sit under a caf awning | J |
On a marble piazza watching the crowd | K |
Or play the flute at a window over a narrow street | L |
While children s sandals clatter in the vaulted entryway | M |
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They heard of a land empty and vast | N |
Bordered by mountains So they went leaving behind crosses | O |
Of thorny wood and traces of campfires | H |
As it happened they spent winter in the snow of a mountain pass | P |
And drew lots and boiled the bones of their companions | Q |
And so afterward a hot valley where indigo could be grown | R |
Seemed beautiful to them And beyond where fog | S |
Heaved into shoreline coves the ocean labored | T |
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Sleep rocks and capes will lie down inside you | U |
War councils of motionless animals in a barren place | V |
Basilicas of reptiles a frothy whiteness | W |
Sleep on your coat while your horse nibbles grass | P |
And an eagle gauges a precipice | W |
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When you wake up you will have the parts of the world | X |
West an empty conch of water and air | Y |
East always behind you the voided memory of snow covered fir | Z |
And extending from your outspread arms | A2 |
Nothing but bronze grasses north and south | B2 |
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We are poor people much afflicted | C2 |
We camped under various stars | D2 |
Where you dip water with a cup from a muddy river | Z |
And slice your bread with a pocketknife | E2 |
This is the place accepted not chosen | F2 |
We remembered that there were streets and houses where we came | G2 |
from | H2 |
So there had to be houses here a saddler s signboard | C2 |
A small veranda with a chair But empty a country where | Y |
The thunder beneath the rippled skin of the earth | I2 |
The breaking waves a patrol of pelicans nullified us | W |
As if our vases brought here from another shore | J2 |
Were the dug up spearheads of some lost tribe | K2 |
Who fed on lizards and acorn flour | Z |
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And here I am walking the eternal earth | I2 |
Tiny leaning on a stick | L2 |
I pass a volcanic park lie down at a spring | J |
Not knowing how to express what is always and everywhere | Y |
The earth I cling to is so solid | C2 |
Under my breast and belly that I feel grateful | M2 |
For every pebble and I don t know whether | Z |
It is my pulse or the earth s that I hear | N2 |
When the hems of invisible silk vestments pass over me | A |
Hands wherever they have been touch my arm | O2 |
Or small laughter once long ago over wine | P2 |
With lanterns in the magnolias for my house is huge | Q2 |
Czeslaw Milosz
(1)
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