Winter Sky
Boris Pasternak 1890 (Moscow) – 1960 (Peredelkino)
Ice-chips plucked whole from the smoke,
the past week’s stars all frozen in flight,
Head over heels the skater’s club goes,
clinking its rink with the peal of night.
Step slow, slower, slow-er, skater,
pride carving its trace as you race by.
each turn’s a constellation cut there,
scratched by a skate in Norway’s sky.
The air is fettered in frozen iron.
Oh, skaters! There – it’s all the same,
that, like snake’s eyes set in ivory,
night’s on earth, a domino game:
that moon, a numb hound’s tongue
is there, frozen tight: that mouths like
the forgers of coins’ – are stung,
filled with lava of breathtaking ice.
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Submitted on May 13, 2011
Modified on March 05, 2023
- 33 sec read
- 96 Views
Quick analysis:
Scheme | X A X A X B X B X C X C D X D X |
---|---|
Closest metre | Iambic tetrameter |
Characters | 627 |
Words | 111 |
Stanzas | 16 |
Stanza Lengths | 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 |
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"Winter Sky" Poetry.com. STANDS4 LLC, 2024. Web. 24 Apr. 2024. <https://www.poetry.com/poem/4574/winter-sky>.
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