Twenty-Eight
In white silence
my muffled boots
made rounds.
Where I looked,
I saw no tracks
but mine.
Poems on the topic: snow
Poems on the topic “snow” on Poets.by.
Two
She moves in spring
as one who
has carried herself
all winter among
famous people.
Yet she does
her own housework;
knows, as her
ancestors knew,
to spread white wash
over rhododendrons
in bright sun, like
remnants of snow —
glimpses, which some
have seen, of
the mountain,
Winter's Bitter Edge
The walking man studies the footprints he’s made in the
freshly-fallen snow, footprints meandering back through
time, back through time with his thoughts. There he finds
a boy playing by a stream, happy as a boy can be. He
walks over and says, “Hello.” The boy doesn’t hear. He
wants to say “remember this” but all he can do is watch
for a while as the child works his way along the bank and
finally out of sight.
His thoughts lead back to a grassy field where a young
man tosses hay bales onto a wagon. The man in the snow
wants to shout “be careful” but again can only watch as
the farm cart passes by. He knows the young man has no
reason to listen to the wind. Turning up his collar, he
shrugs away the cold.
The Medal
You arrived like an odd insect
That, upon extending its wings,
Belongs to all yet to no one in particular.
The grapevine beetle knows
That its time was summer and locusts,
And that before that sweltering heat and that music
Life is a bale of hay, darkness, and a thin membrane.
It recognizes a purple shell wherein
The female, quietly lurking,
Yearns to be fire and fruit.
That summer of nineteen hundred and something,
I withstood the calumny of my life
Like an emblem of molten silver,
Without shade, but rich in fruit so sweet
That milk and honey were nothing.
Milk, honey, streams
Sierra Nevada, November: An Appropriate Weather
Twice, perhaps, I have awakened surprised
by snow in the wide field. November: bare oak branches
like cast iron. A long breath drawn
down a blue canyon in my lungs.
A superb stillness, plenty of room.
My mind sits in a corner of such weather.
It sees a few men in brown clothes
cleaning an auditorium. They slam
metal folding-chairs back into two-dimensional
space. That sound echoes like gunshots across
the bare field between November and March.
Someone incinerates a newspaper
containing today’s weather forecast. My eyes
follow cinders and smoke into a pale sky,
into a dream of weather in which a storm
descends to devour my mind’s desires
Sierra Nevada: Cold Work Moment
In a sense it’s always winter
in this wooded county of our psyche,
where my father and I build a house,
the rest of the crew off drunk somewhere.
The contractor has taken blueprints
and a cash advance to Reno.
A white sky pays out
kernels of snow. My father saws.
I nail. Partitions take ghostly shape.
In the forest of our days, coyotes
eat bread crumbs we scattered
to find our way back to where we left for work.
We lift walls into iron wind,
and brace. Ropes of snot come out
of our noses. Sierra cold’s meticulous.
It polishes our eyeballs like a monocled jeweler.
Avalanche
In my hometown, an avalanche ran over
an empty shack, crossed the highway,
crushed the schoolhouse. The children
were all home eating boiled peas,
scratching themselves, wanting to go
outside in the snow once more before
bedtime. That evening’s event ended
schooling in the town. Children ever
since have traveled twelve miles to go
learn in the next town.
Cameras remembered the sight
of snow versus building. People
would recall the sound without
describing it. They couldn't go
around talking about how loud
snow could be—how long the sound
Murargatan: Uppsala, Sweden
Maja used to say,
“Thank you for today.”
From her I learned
everyone’s old and
young at once.
At night in snow
near Maja’s bus-stop
on Maja’s basic street—
Murargatan means
street of bricks—wild
rabbits sometimes paused
like caesuras in Swedish
conversation. I waited.
I felt wiser after leaving
Maja’s house. Life itself
was a tutorial. I’d gathered
Cabin in Snow
Outside a cabin in snow,
we are, and hear our, breathing here.
And wind in pines shucks
itself through sound like snakes
slipping through their summer skins.
And it is easy out here. And out
here it is easy to admire
an image-aided concept
of cabins in snow. And
it is easy inside a cabin
now to believe in an Idea
of Winter, for notions of snow
furnish our true cabin,
consciousness—which, fragile amidst
oblivion’s drifts, stays sturdy against howling.
Of April O the Delicate Sighs of Ferns
When snow, which veils the slumber of lakes
Withdraws in mist and the speckled earth
Is damp with leaves’ regenerative breath,
I return, as I must, where the willows
Rebelliously fly their green banners
Against the perilous Canadian clouds.
When mist, which hails the warming of earth
Raises its skirt over moss bordered streams
I come with new love in the fold of my arm,
Regard how white violets kiss the new sun.
For us the long winter was frozen endurance
And dreaming of love through the trackless stars.
Snowfall
Enchantment on the river
And magic on the lake,
The world has turned to crystal,
Don't speak or it will break!
The road seems new, the valley
An unfamiliar place,
Where trees are trimmed with spangles
And stones with silver lace.
A pink and white, furred rabbit
With a star-tuft for a tail,
Hops up the hill by moonlight
And leaves a fairy trail.
I think we mar the meadow
So white, and smooth as suede,
We ought to shine in satin
Or glitter in brocade.
To a Mocking-Bird
I was asleep, dreaming that I could see
The north hills bowed and burdened with the snow,
And the grey-bearded river old and slow,
And the sick silences on vine and tree —
When in upon my loneliness and me
Light rushed, and sweetness tumbled down as though
Windows had opened for white hands to throw
Roses and roses from a balcony.
Oh Bird, imperious for happiness,
For moments gold as arrows in the air,
I am the only dark in all daybreak!
Let loose your avalanche of loveliness
Over my heart, until I am aware
How long I sleep — and sing me wide awake !
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