Assistant to the Director, Estee Schlenner, chose this week’s poem, here’s what she had to say: “I love this poem for its simplicity. Winter can feel very long, and sometimes lonely, but there’s also simple and cozy moments that make it feel very special. These moments are perfectly illustrated in this poem.”
Winter
A little heat in the iron radiator,
the dog breathing at the foot of the bed,
and the windows shut tight,
encrusted with hexagons of frost.
I can barely hear the geese
complaining in the vast sky,
flying over the living and the dead,
schools and prisons, and the whitened fields.
Poem copyright © 2014 by Billy Collins, “Winter” (Poetry East, No. 82, 2014). Poem reprinted by permission of Billy Collins and the publisher.
The RCAH Center for Poetry at MSU 