The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was Spawning snow and pink roses against it Soundlessly collateral and incompatible: World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think, Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion A tangerine and spit the pips and feel The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes - On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands - There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

After days of night sweats and absent sleep when he wakes from bed to find what was a snow covered field clothed in a tentative green, he thinks whether this is how Radhika feels when the dark-bodied one comes thundering down from the East, to break her                                                   thirst, and its silence?

God, give us a long winter and quiet music, and patient mouths, and a little pride--before our age ends. Give us astonishment and a flame, high, bright.

Note: May you be blessed with both astonishment and the flame in the new year, dear reader!