* * * * * * *
It is snowing.
* * * * * * *
The first snow of the year.
Just this week the last gold and fiery leaves
fell to the ground and we raked them in piles,
like graves in the streets, the year buried
just in time for their removal. And so
our roads clog with brooding mounds
until the city crews come at night
with their swirling lights and scoop away
the leaves and leaves and bequeath
a smear of tree-slime on the asphalt,
like the innards of a pumpkin smashed
on All Hallows morn, the street slick with frost.
* * * * * * *
It is snowing
and the air smells
like old pumpkin
and rotting leaves
and woodsmoke.
An old opossum
eyes you darkly
at the gutter
and shivers.
You are forgetting
so much right now.
* * * * * * *
You cannot leap back
into who you were or
what you once did and you
cannot dash forward
into what you would
most desire or pray
for although we spend
so much of ourselves
doing precisely these.
You are trapped here,
in the snow, in the
awareness of the
snow, and your desire
to leave this snow behind
as well as the memory
of all snowtime.
* * * * * * *
It is snowing.
* * * * * * *
When you were young you played
in the snow for hours, built
forts and tunnels and lived
in the cold domain. You
rode sleds and tobaggans
and traversed snowfields,
climbed snow trees and waged war
with snow balls and icicle
daggers, you poked holes
in the pond and trudged trails
like polar explorers
through the meadows.
* * * * * * *
Now snow is an event,
an abstraction, something
that takes place in-the-world,
out there. It is something
we fear. It is cold. Something
we do not understand.
Like those piles of leaves
in the streets that haunt us
so. We would prefer to
lean on a rake and stare
into a flame and watch
the smoke curl up to the sky,
listen to the leaves crackle
and sizzle in the mist.
At least then we would know
something.
* * * * * * *
It is snowing.
* * * * * * *
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