Wherein the Snow is Hid

Along potholed ruelles, plowed rough and high,

lie last December’s snows

with jagged firn from months when I,

in numb good-night,

have curled up in the company of crows.

My roof is tempest-proof, my kitchen bright;

still, a bleak expanse

blinds my bedroom’s line of sight

as if to tease,

in squalls of gusting, icy sibilance,

that somewhere, past this sepulchre, past trees

shrouded in Lenten brume,

daffodils and bumblebees

won’t make it through

the hard earth. Yet I know the pond will boom,

the wild geese will return. They always do.

And so it is I cope

with winter. For although it’s true

my fear of God

at times has ruled out razor, river, rope,

hope holds me here, ludicrous and odd,

valuing March above

July’s colossal verdant fraud,

because a mass

of freeze-thaw scree bears witness to a love

that once approached the melting point of glass.

Catherine Chandler