dots-menu
×

Home  »  Poetry: A Magazine of Verse  »  Paul F. Sifton

Harriet Monroe, ed. (1860–1936). The New Poetry: An Anthology. 1917.

Wolverine Winter

Paul F. Sifton

THE CHICKADEE came in the morning:

Over the Lake hung snow-clouds—piling,

Wheeling for the signal—for the signal

Of the lake gods coming to battle!

Up and down the West Coast went the Life Guards,

Sniffing at the air and frowning at the sky;

Peering out to westward, muttering to their Pard—

To their Pard, the surf seeping high.

While the Winter came out of the North

Stripped naked, cruel as a bloodless sword!

I carried in wood and I pumped me some water;

I cleaned out the chimney and doubled my quilts.

Then I phoned in to town and bid my pals adieu.

We cursed at the weather; promised our God a prayer.

For the Winter, the frozen Hell of the West Coast,

Like a weasel was sneaking down the shore.

Like the wraith of a profaned tomb it came.

I could see it twisting and writhing round the Point,

Round Little Sauble Point, where the pines and spruces

Whine in a gale like the over-taut string of a viol.

Out among the snow-clouds swept its scythe-like breath,

Fretting the pitching waves to frothy frenzies:

Catching their boiling crests in a creamy ice:

And where it passed the moisture was turned to snow.

At dusk, with a keening wrench and thrust, it left the Lake;

Snarled at the Land; froze the West Coast dead!