The Snowman

'The Emperor of the Universe of pain jutted his upper chest above the ice...' —Dante Alighieri, The Inferno Who fashioned him with burning hands of ice? Who chiselled him out of the roofs of hell? And for what purpose and what price in the blind black eye of what winter gale? Who lodged this parsnip deep into his brain? Who placed this foolish crown upon his head? And to whose profit and whose gain in the wake of what wonder and what dread? Who made him lord of his forsaken stare? Who left him in this world of raspy cries? And unto whose will and whose care in the long shadow of such sad, cold skies?