David Budbill: "The Sixth of January"

The cat sits on the back of the sofa looking
out the window through the softly falling snow
at the last bit of gray light.

I can’t say the sun is going down.
We haven’t seen the sun for two months.
Who cares?

I am sitting in the blue chair listening to this stillness.
The only sound: the occasional gurgle of tea
coming out of the pot and into the cup.

How can this be?
Such calm, such peace, such solitude
in this world of woe.

"The Sixth of January" by David Budbill, from Moment to Moment: Poems of a Mountain Recluse. © Copper Canyon Press, 1999.

Photography credit: "Watching the Snow Falling," by akinosora (originally color).