Places 01: Snow  

What happened to the snow?
Eight inches—a week ago
covered our hills—

until the west winds rose to blow—
lifting, sifting throwing
all that snow down into gullies
up around the trunks of trees.

The winds swept piles inside the swales
and filled up jagged furrows
till all our rough plowed ground
spread out smooth
as a bleached white billowing sheet. 

And there it lay—
waiting, for a time—
untrodden, inviting.

Silently, it began to disappear;
shivering itself, unseen
into the frozen air,
invisible, like it wasn’t there.

Today, the hills by the house are bare—
it’s brown dried grass again,
safer footing for my boots—
iced, it crunches underfoot. 

The soft white snow withdrew too soon.
Long before my aging bones
bent down to make an angel,
got up enough gumption for the sled.

© Ginny Emery, an earlier version was published in Places, 2011