It is a scene as if in a dream, somewhere
colder than here. The hunters and a pack
of dogs trudge home through deep drifts,
between barren trees, their heads down.
The hunt has been unsuccessful, as even
the dogs know. Ironically, there is a trail
of fresh tracks in the snow just in front of
them, mocking their failure. Their women
are waiting, have their pots prepared. What
will they tell them? Everyone else in the
little village is preoccupied with their own
pursuits: some play or skate on the small
lakes; others have a flaming fire blowing
before their door, the sign above it half-
unhinged; a woman crossing a stone bridge
labors under a stack of sticks thrown over
her shoulder; a wagon, too heavily loaded
with logs, moves between aisles of trees
on the main street of the village, the horses’
heads lowered as they pull. In the distance
icy mountain peaks cut into a pale blue-
green sky. Everything is still. Everything
is dusted with new snow, piled over the old.
Everything stops. And as I watch, a crow,
which just an hour ago was sitting in the
tree outside my window, soars into and
through Bruegel’s air and freezes there.
William Virgil Davis’s most recent book of poetry is Dismantlements of Silence: Poems Selected and New (Texas A&M). His first, One Way to Reconstruct the Scene, won the Yale Series of Younger Poets Prize. His poetry has been published widely worldwide.
Image: Pieter Bruegel, Hunters in the Snow, 1565. Public domain.
