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On returning to winter's last gasp.

I’m on my way back to New York after a long weekend in Los Angeles. This stanza by Wallace Stevens struck a chord with me. I feel this way because I am int the process of returning, not because I’ve already returned. New York never feels this way when I’m there, but coming back to March is a kind of feeling, there’s an essence in me that Stevens elucidates in these bold iambs.

from Farewell to Florida

IV. 

My North is leafless and lies in a wintry slime

Both of men and clouds, a slime of men in crowds.

This darkened water cloven by sullen swells

Against your sides, then shoving and slithering,

The darkness shattered, turbulent with foam.

To be free again, to return to the violent mind

That is their mind, these men, and that will bind

Me round, carry me, misty deck, carry me

To the cold, go on, high ship, go on, plunge on.