Snow: Richard Wilbur's poem, "Boy at the Window"

Boy at the Window
by Richard Wilbur

Seeing the snowman standing all alone
In the dusk and cold is more than he can bear.
The small boy weeps to hear the wind prepare
A night of gnashings and enormous moan.
His tearful sight can hardly reach to where
The pale-faced figure with bitumen eyes
Returns him such a god-forsaken stare
As outcast Adam gave to Paradise.

The man of snow is, nonetheless, content,
Having no wish to go inside and die.
Still, he is moved to see the youngster cry.
Though frozen water is his element,
He melts enough to drop from one soft eye
A trickle of the purest rain, a tear
For the child at the bright pane surrounded by
Such warmth, such light, such love, and so much fear.

From Good Poems selected & Introduced by Garrison Keillor, 2002

Born in 1921, Richard Wilbur grew up in rural NJ, went to Amherst, bummed around the country (46 states) on freight trains & rode in a coal car over the Rockies and served in the army in the Italian campaign in WWII.