I am that final thing,

A man learning to sing.

    Theodore Roethke, "The Dying Man"

Deep winter still, but bright sun, not brief

And all this day a passing and glaring over

Drifted snow, rooftops bare now as the trees

Where each branch and winter bird is visible,

Not hidden in the green that will glare too

In a few months, each song not just heard

But seen now, some just a few notes and

Others a longer rondure rising into answer

Or falling away into the following silence.

Year after year, season after season, only

My few words who never learned to sing.