Snowfall (Via Negativa) Out on the highway, snow settles in place Covering the tracks the traffic has traced; Blotting out edges, disguising the rough, It buries the world in heaps of white stuff. It blankets the trees, their branches rimmed white With down-drifting flakes that fill up the night. Immaculate, empty—winter forlorn Clears out a space where beauty is born. So poets, in language, clear out a space; In parsing out lines, they strive to erase. Removing distinctions too sharply defined; Cloaking in symbols what clutters the mind. Subtracting, not adding, more from the world As a ribbon of metaphor…