The Snow Retreat

There is no rainy season

Here peripatetic monks
Use for return and retreat.
It is deep January.
The sky is hard when clearest
After many little snows.
The housebound monk must decide

Is it time to go outside?
It's the walk to the water,
Not the thought of the water
Makes him shiver. It's the thought
Of being terribly cold,
Having done this terribly
Cold thing, not nothing, shakes him.