31 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. 63