Melting snow makes me melancholy.
a mind of winter
It is the problem of time.
Nothing that is not there
Melting snow is the image of time’s passage–in it we see the anticipation, the actual snowfall, and then
and the nothing that is
the moments where the snow is a concrete element in the world.
The snow that has no name/this snow
When the snow was in the world outside the kids sledded and the dog and I cross-country skied the neighborhood, using sidewalks and streets as our paths.
blankness filling
Even sound travels differently over the snow–and the hush of absent cars. From the park next door, we heard the bells of the church toll noon.
Often, awakening suddenly at midnight
The dog and I walked the remnants of snow this morning. I know part of my discontent is from memory–in Ithaca, the snow remained for months–with the rapid arrival and departure of Seattle’s snow, it feels as though time is sped up. Also, of course, memories of Ithaca bring memories to the fore of a recent loss, because Ithaca was an adventure shared.
The sudden, overcast quiet of the past tense.
My birthday is this week. It’ll be my second for this new oddly solo place I’m in. The children are already preparing their gifts. They’ve told me. They are also evidence of time’s passage but there is too much of the present in them for the past to be painful.
I have bound twine around/these hands too
Not like the snow whose melting only reminds me.
nameless you walked toward me/And I knew you
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quotes are by Wallace Stevens, Brigit Pegeen Kelly, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Larry Levis
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