What we hate most falls on us like snow,

And the worst blows through the least crack.

What the crack is, is the clearest clue

To what hurts most, where we find the first break.

Hate works with us something like a law,

And it is little use to deny it or pretend.

What good is it to wish for the old days, the far,

The easy people we could easily understand?

No, that was all too slippery, like sleighing,

Running behind horses along a country road.

Hatred is in our time. Like war. Like flying.

Like hating that god-damned bastard Bill McLeod.