Snow by Timothy Steele - The New Criterion

Poems

January 2001

Snow

Burke

was right!

The soundless character
Of snow was like a mood.
Out after supper, we
Felt both thrilled and subdued:
Our street had been transfigured
Into a lovely waste
But for the cones of lamplight
Its boundaries effaced.

We’d play touch football, passes
Wobbling from mittened hands;
We’d skid round, lacking traction
That stopping or cutting demands.
We’d pause for barreling plows,
The night’s true juggernauts,
That cast off fans of snow
Like ocean-slicing yachts.

Disbanding, we could hear
Long after we could see
Each other; night resumed
Its mute autonomy,
Emptied of us and filling
With the thick-slanting snows
Through which occasional cars
Would—their chains jingling—nose.

—Timothy Steele

Timothy Steele

Events

November 05 2009

Open Event: Talk by James Panero

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November 09 2009

YOUNG FRIENDS: Tour of an important contemporary art collection

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November 24 2009

OPEN EVENT: Laura Jacobs reading

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Webcasts

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 4
"The Criminalization of Making Money" by Lionel Shriver, Recorded 9/25/09

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 3
"The State and the Threat to Democracy" by Jeremy Black and "The Paradox of the Intellectual and the Future of Capitalism" by Tim Congdon, Recorded on 9/25/2009

New Criterion-Social Affairs Unit Conference: Part 2
"Nice 'N' Easy: The Age of Micro Tyranny" by Mark Steyn, Recorded on 9/25/2009

Weblog

An exercise course for the eye

by James Panero

Nov 04, 2009 03:30 PM

“The Berlin Wall: 20 years after”

by Jeffrey Greggs

Oct 29, 2009 03:23 PM

The Pursuit of Wisdom in the Age of the Internet

by James Bowman

Oct 25, 2009 04:22 PM

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