Turner could have done no better,
nor did he, articulating the light
made now radiant, prismatic:
hills, lake, trees and woolen sky
filtered by this sun-threaded squall
of snow as real as veneration,
the smell of rain, the heft of stone,
or the thought that within an hour
it will be gone, the veer and waft
and thrust of clouds and light
electric with the back-lit pulse
and shimmer of each ray of snow
consigned to memory and weather
closing down this moment’s glow.
Peter Filkins will publish his fifth collection of poems, Water / Music, with Johns Hopkins this April. His previous book of poems, The View We’re Granted, received the Sheila Margaret Motton Best Book Prize from the New England Poetry Club. Recent poems have appeared in The Paris Review, The Hopkins Review, Salmagundi, and The American Scholar. He teaches writing and literature at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and translation at Bard College.
