Prologue To Spring

The winter landscape hangs in balance now,
Transfixed by glare of blue from gorgon’s eye;
The skaters freese within a stone tableau.

Air alters into glass and the whole sky
Grows brittle as a tilted china bowl;
Hill and valley stiffen row on row.

What coutermagic can undo the snare
Which has stopped the season in its tracks
And suspended all that might occur?

Sylvia Plath