Poem By Charles Simic

The Cold

As if in a presence of an intelligence
Concentrating. I thought myself
Scrutinized and measured closely
By the sky and the earth,

And then algebraized and entered
In a notebook page blank and white,
Except for the faint blue lines
Which might have been bars,

For I kept walking and walking,
And it got darker and then there was
A flicker of a light or two
Far above and beyond my big cage.

– Charles Simic

From Weather Forecast for Utopia and Vicinity: Poems, 1967-1982 (Station Hill Press, 1983)