The Revised Version

“THE LOVERS I LEAVE TO THE WINTER”
for Dana Ward

Of the icy light on the eyes, I will accept my blindness as it comes over me
and I will accept these white signals.
If I saw something good, I would remember it for yr gift-shop, a cup full
of coins for a small accordion.
In the dark room—I spoke to you as if you were here—a funeral prepared
for our imagined pageantry of loves left.
So I will accept no love at all on this coldest day of the year and adjust
the heavens to make a storm of excess paper, pencils and dust.
There is nothing so simple as a smile among a thousand sad faces but in my
blindness, I am made to feel out for laughter.
I believe in a place where the sun will restore my eyes and I accept that
they will remain an icy blue against so much offense.
There is god in them hills and they are green, they are off limits for hunting
because so few animals are free, the family on their land.
No pasture can release more than a wad of blackbirds into the glacial sky—
tonight, hollow but for the inky swarm and cutout clouds.
Whose traverse could be the will, the winter release its frigid obstacles upon
me, my sentiment and these metal rings.
I will accept the winter has claimed me a casualty and I will accept these tidings
of war as just recourse, sightless but tall.
So please set among your keepsake menagerie these blind eyes and the scenes
not afforded them in sight.