Let us then with confidence
draw near to the throne of grace…
—Hebrews 4:16
Spare afternoon clouds: more intense than white can render,
hard-edged, unmoving.
Brilliant freezing day.
You flinched a moment ago when you thought
you heard unseasonable thunder.
Like a judgment. Only the booming of ice on the river.
Tonight, subzero, says the radio’s weatherman.
He can’t find a voice
besides his normal one, cheery.
When he’s gone, some other voice implores you
to consider taking in—
and maybe you ought to—an animal dropped at the pound.
What deliverance you could offer a dog or cat!
Instead you try
to rejoice in your sofa’s snugness.
Unlike the poor beasts, you’re out of it all:
the snow; the sleet;
the gale; and, unthinkable now, the sapping heat.
There are ill-starred men and women too, of course,
but let’s leave it at rats.
In your confident boyhood, you’d shoot them.
What had they done, and what could have left you
without remorse,
it seems, enthroned on a couch in a cheery house?
But no. One can sense you’re uneasy since that thunderous ice
alarmed you. No wonder that you believe in grace.
Sydney Lea is the former Vermont poet laureate, recipient of the Vermont Governor’s Award for Excellence in the Arts, and founder of New England Review. His most recent books are the poetry collection Here (Four Way) and a graphic mock-epic, The Exquisite Triumph of Wormboy (Able Muse).