January

Again I reply to the triple winds
running chromatic fifths of derision
outside my window:

Play louder.
You will not succeed. I am
bound more to my sentences
the more you batter at me
to follow you.
And the wind,
as before, fingers perfectly
its derisive music.

 

William Carlos Williams, 1883-1963

From Sour Grapes (The Four Seas Company, 1921).

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