—after "The Snow Man" by Wallace Stevens, 1921

One must have a mind of winter
stationed in the Oort sparseness,
listening to the quantum foam

roiling at the edge of being;
the memory of echoes of the big bang;
the thin pulse of long-dead pulsars;

categorizing and cataloging
species of nothing, to behold the distant
glitter of Sol and not to think

of pine trees, junipers, spruces
swaying together in the wind,
playing games with sunlight,

of warm spring snow,
smelling of pine needles,
rolled, stacked, quickened.