Our back deck, yesterday at noon.
Now imagine the snow doubled...
That's what we woke up to this morning.
A LITTLE SNOW
dusts windows, doorknobs: crunches under
pink pads, paws too distracted to feel
the cold—her own boots, of a sort. Snow
powders frozen January ground: smothers
yellow lawn and tries to choke the struggling
crocus, dull the sharp spears of tomorrow's
daffodil. But the cat is ready: ears and tail
pointed toward that bluejay that scolds
from the pine tree, the siskins chipping
as they feed, the soft scufflings of the rodent
meandering in the woodpile. . .
kk does the front deck (yesterday)
(Dale is our 85-year-old neighbor)
With bouncy Pomeranian
the neighbor’s plowing brand-new snow—
you’d think that it was ten below.
He’s up and down the drive again,
a noisy course of stop and go.
With bouncy Pomeranian,
the neighbor’s plowing brand-new snow,
his knitted cap vermilion
against the white, as to and fro
they slowly crawl—reptilian.
With bouncy Pomeranian
the neighbor’s plowing brand-new snow—
you’d think that it was ten below!
kk does the driveway with the ATV
(plow blade on front)
THE GIRL WITH THE WOLF
walked past today: they picked their way
through the snowy slush, the muddy
berms—tomorrow’s ice already here at
two o’clock this afternoon. I’m always
startled by their blue eyes, their tiny
pupils: ice-diamonds against
the white snow of his
thick winter wolf-fur, her
pale human girl-skin wrapped in
blue wool, navy jacket, small white
gloves… They look up in time
to see me: sharp glitter of silver over
yesterday’s white: sparkle of crystals
on his fur and her skin as they
carefully choose their way together:
pick their slow way through
the glassy blue secrets of
tomorrow’s snow…
THE SNOW BEAR
for debee
chases her dreams:
slides over
her as she sleeps:
wakes her
with his grumblings as he
skids down
the steep roof of her
twilight:
rumbles and moans
as his claws dig in:
scratches
desperate lines in the flimsy
frame she has sketched
ever so lightly
over her head…
(I call the chunks of snow that fall out of the trees onto the roof "snow bears". Thunk!)
OPINIONS ABOUT RAIN
sprinkle down around me everywhere
I go, splash mud on my boots—big drops
blurring up my glasses as I run from
the car to the haberdasher to the tea shop.
The tea maker fiddles with his bone cups
and his cozies, mutters over soggy leaves
of Jamaican spice as he tries to divine
tomorrow, all the while grumbling
about today. . . The haberdasher is more
proprietary: counts drops and declares (after
marking down the totals) that all quotas
have been met and the sun will return
at 3:12 on Thursday. . . But my neighbor
just thunders at me while she rows
for the mail, yellow slicker swish-swishing,
hairdo flying, nails at risk, bundled up
in all that she owns, bristling about local
storm damage—ruined hats, blown-away
teacups, unfortunate toppling of topiary. . .
BLIZZARDS
Kids in earmuffs and ladies in long skirts skate around
tiny trees and tidy houses and a snow-white church;
there are cats and dogs and even a wee teddy bear; but
it’s all just a snowglobe. . . And every now and then
that globe gets tipped upside down, maybe by some naughty
child, or the restless spinster across the street, and then
those trees have to dig in: the church spire points toward
the ground, and the teddy bear stands on her head while
all that snow dithers down around her. . . Then, if she’s
lucky, her globe gets put back on the shelf or the coffee table
in one piece, no leaks, and such a flurry slowly settles as
the ladies straighten their skirts—at least until the next time. . .
Today's LittleNip:
TULIPA
one dying tulip
drops two scarlet petals on
February snow
____________________
—Medusa (with thanks to Sam the Snake Man for today's pix, taken yesterday, and to all of you for your indulgence of MY indulgence of my poems about living in the snow...)
