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117
Running in the Early January Cold
The near water heaves bright gray, then deepening
Outward to a dark horizon line as keen
And aloof as the evenly moving, clean
Crest of a wave, or the edge of a gull's wing:
That pale sunset out there hasn't anything
To do with me, with its cloud whorl, its icy green;
There's nothing in the few people I've seen
To catch the eye, and take away the sting
Of the raw cold look of things; and thinking I run
Upright and briskly, I see my shadow: a tall
Pinhead aslant on stilts, going at a crawl
Along the sand; and in that room today
The neutral silence, I feeling in all I say
The desolateness of what's barely begun.