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 sepulcher, 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
one’s fear of God
at times might rule 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.
by Catherine Chandler, first published in Quadrant
Editor’s Note: I think I may have chosen this poem simply because I am so desperate for spring. The lovely rhyme and meter hypnotized me into believing anything is possible, even the “melting point of glass” after a long, cold, snowy season.
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