March’s bitter morning thawed

the frozen skin of the sound
as Harvard’s gothic shadow fell

upon the burying ground.

Snow in its gelid costume dressed

the icy stand of birch
where the tilted gravestones shelved

against the Methodist church.

The leafless birches sank within

the shallow swamp of snow,
a Japanese rice-paper screen’s

calligraphy aglow,

like great blue herons stalking

carp in silent pools
beneath the melting icicles’

dripping, glassy jewels.

The birches formed their rank above

the waters of paradise,
warming the gravestones’ chiseled names

in Dante’s lake of ice.

On standing pools wind shivered

over the traitorous dead,
where starving Ugolino gnawed

Archbishop Roger’s head.

The winter’s sculptured rites of snow,

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