The bleak, unhallowed call of God
comes in the nonsense calm,
comes where the quiet pitch of wind
might barely stir an inch of grass
or rouse a head of corn from stoop

black ice on the path of words
makes language inexplicable
and there the stunning blow of God
makes landfall in a silence

But call and blow are not enough
and so the freezing mist and sleet
fall out of season everywhere

On every orchard sunset bronze
and every fleet of growing corn

The weather touching in my head
defies the sense of what is there