Snow Angel - Dec 16 2022

 

Snow Angel

Dec 16 2022

I am sitting in a comfortable chair

in a cozy room

in quiet country house,

surrounded by trees

with darkness closing in.

It takes an act of will

to rouse myself

from my lazy torpor

and layer-up to brave the cold.

Snow has been falling

for two whole days

and the roads are impassable.

Even walking

is a hard slog.

The dogs porpoise through the drifts

excited by cold

and delighted by the snow,

while I mush through

exhausting myself.

But it's beautiful;

an Arcadia of snow,

where the evergreens are dressed in white

and a blemished world

camouflaged,

its inequities levelled out

messiness concealed.

The freezer is full.

There's plenty of seasoned wood

a good well

back-up power.

So for now

I am free to indulge

in the illusion of self-sufficiency

that only the foolish rich

in all their magnificent hubris

imagine possible.

Where my absence from the world

may be easily excused.

Where the spinning globe has stopped

and I can gratefully step off,

no clocks

hounding me.

Snowed-in

snow-stayed

snow-blocked.

I drop down

into a bottomless drift

and catch my breath.

Find myself fanning my arms and legs

   —   a snow angel

I thought I'd forgotten how to make

after so many years

as a self-important adult.

And now

as ethereal as its namesake

descended briefly to earth.

Which I know will disappear

in the first brisk wind,

but make it anyway.

No reason

nothing to be gained.

A snow angel

in the dark of night

steadily filling with snow.