Where there was only grey, and brownish grey,
                                                And greyish brown against the white
                                                Of fallen snow at twilight in the winter woods,

                                                Now an uncanny flamelike thing, black
                                                and sulphur-yellow, as if it were dreamed by Audubon,
                                                Is turned upside down in a delicate cascade

                                                Of new green leaves, feeding on whatever mites
                                                Or small white spiders haunt underleafs at stem end.
                                                A magnolia warbler, to give the thing a name.

                                                The other name we give this overmuch of appetite
                                                And beauty unconscious of itself is life.
                                                And that that kept the mind becalmed all winter? —

                                                The more austere and abstract rhythm of the trunks,
                                                Vertical music the cold makes visible,
                                                That holds the whole thing up and gives it form,

                                                or strength — call that the law.  It's made,
                                                whatever we like to think, more of interests
                                                than of reasons, trees reaching each their own way

                                                for the light, to make the sort of order that there is.
                                                And what of those deer threading through the woods
                                                In a late snowfall and silent as the snow?

                                                Look:   they move among the winter trees, so much
                                                the color of the trees, they hardly seem to move.

                                                                                                   for Justice William J. Brennan, Jr.

Click here to read about Robert Hass.  "New Jersey Woods" is taken from Robert Hass's Sun Under Wood.

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