Tom Disch

O! wonderful for weight and whiteness! Ideolog whose absolutes Are always proven right By white and then More white and white again, Winning the same argument year After year by making the opposition Disappear! O! dear miniature of infinity with no End in sight and no snow- Flake exactly like Another, all A little different no Matter how many may fall, Just like our own DNA or the human face Eternal! O! still keep covering the street And sidewalks, cemeteries, even Our twice-shoveled drive, And all that is alive, With geometries that sleet Will freeze into Death's Impromptu vision of a heaven Wholly white! For we know who your sponsor is, whose will You so immensely serve, Whose chill is more severe Than any here. Though his name may be unspoken, His commandments are unbroken, And every monument that you erect Belongs to him!

Did they enjoy this, those honorary ancestors Of ours, whom we may not speak of as Indians now, But, rather, as Native Americans? Did they, that is, Have the opportunity to take in such views? For there were no roads then, slicing through The hills, opening vistas like this. Astonishing! Unless, perhaps, they were upon the Delaware, A kind of road itself. But, otherwise, would not The land itself have been an inconvenience, The changing leaves an oracle of cruelties To come and not, as for the tourists on a bus, A postcard to sweep up at a glance and then Go home to the similar view they own— One stately maple, or two, intensely orange? Only the birds, may be, might have known These colors, the sudden shift of gears from green To ocher, umber, brightest yellow, deepest red, The colors of the gleeful dead. For birds can fly Above the trees and see what we see from a bus. But is there gladness in their flight? Might it Not as well be night? And Indians (forgive the word), Did they delight more than a bird? Were there Esthetes then as now, before the ax, The ox, the plow? I must believe there were— And why? Because they traded all Manhattan For a handful of ceramic beads. They knew, As we, that a glint of pure bright blue Is worth a whole October day, or two.