Winter Landscape

The Dispossessed (1948)

The three men coming down the winter hillIn brown, with tall poles and a pack of houndsAt heel, through the arrangement of the trees,Past the five figures at the burning straw,Returning cold and silent to their town,

Returning to the drifted snow, the rinkLively with children, to the older men,The long companions they can never reach,The blue light, men with ladders, by the churchThe sledge and shadow in the twilit street,

Are not aware that in the sandy timeTo come, the evil waste of historyOutstretched, they will be seen upon the browOf that same hill: when all their companyWill have been irrecoverably lost,

These men, this particular three in brownWitnessed by birds will keep the scene and sayBy their configuration with the trees,The small bridge, the red houses and the fire,What place, what time, what morning occasion

Sent them into the wood, a pack of houndsAt heel and the tall poles upon their shoulders,Thence to return as now we see them andAnkle-deep in snow down the winter hillDescend, while three birds watch and the fourth flies.

The Dispossessed (1948)