Two Illustrations That the The World Is
What You Make of It
--Wallace Stevens 

I. The Constant Disquisition of the Wind 

The sky seemed so small that winter day,
A dirty light on a lifeless world,
Contracted like a withered stick. 

It was not the shadow of cloud and cold,
But a sense of the distance of the sun ---
The shadow of a sense of his own, 

A knowledge that the actual day
Was so much less. Only the wind
Seemed large and loud and high and strong. 

And as he thought within the thought
Of the wind, not knowing that that thought
Was not his thought, nor anyone's, 

The appropriate image of himself,
So formed, became himself and he breathed
The breath of another nature as his own, 

But only its momentary breath,
Outside of and beyond the dirty light,
That never could be animal, 

A nature still without a shape,
Except his own --- perhaps, his own
In a Sunday's violent idleness.