For G.B.S., Old

by William Carlos Williams
August, 1948

When the mind burns
the external is swallowed
nor can cold
censor it when it launches
its attack

Sever man
into his parts of bird and fish
Wake him
to the plausibilities
of those changes
he contemplates but does not dare

Until by acceptance
he forfeits
the green perspectives
which frighten him off
to his own destruction--

the mirage
the shape of a shape
become the shape he feared
his Tempest frozen
into a pattern of ice.