Always only and forever snow
no memory or possibility of Spring
Pitiless piling of moisture by wind and man
Arctic howl bites bone and blood shivers
Bluing digits numbed by mercury’s tumble
Relentless white punctuated only by
skeleton snow fences and red flags on car antennas
Signaling danger to bundled schoolkids
pounding mittens to keep warm as they wait for the bus
Behind muffling mountains left by giant plows
Icicles of sounds frozen in memory:
shrieking sled down the roof of the potato barn,
Scraping through to the ice on the pond,
skating on raspy double-edged blades,
Boots’ crunch in the crystalline night
Dad returns home after a big storm
from high atop a towering snowbank
I watch as my parents dig blind to meet
directing, “More to the left, Mom!
Hey, I think I can see Spring from up here!”
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Copyright Deborah McGlauflin 2009. All rights reserved.
