Already dead from November's freeze
Or hunters.
And the trees--only brittle skeletons remain
After the Passover of the Angel of Frost;
Still, the reddened hand of a farmer can point
The difference
Between Elm, which reaches upwards,
And Oak, which reaches out.
Perhaps the cold which reddens the farmer's hand
Has also touched his heart
This December in Missouri.
(This poem won first prize in the Harvard Summer School Poetry Contest. The contest elicited 65 entries and was judged by Thomas Babe '63, teaching fellow in English, Neil Rudenstine, tutor in English, and Fred Anderson, instructor in Expository Writing.)