Snow

Early morning, my car enameled

in milky ice, I wait as it warms.

The news tells of a dark world spreading

but I see only infinitely etched snowflakes

frozen across the windshield,

each plate a stellate canvas,

the backyard draped

wedding-gown white.

Today over coffee the talk is of war,

but I swivel my chair to the window,

watch wind and snow swirling in some ancient dance

of healing, covering every barren spot

with glittering patience.

On the evening news, they ache

to spread words of doom, dictators

with black hats and rifles.  But instead

they must tell of snow, white flakes

that gather and glaze trees into glass.

Tonight, only the bruising weight of plows,

the bullet sound of salt.  Anchormen,

like war correspondents, poise their cameras

to watch us spin and glide, a winter opera

of grace and movement, boots marching

only toward homes with snow-decked windows

and faint yellow light.

The grim face standing at the podium says

dark invaders are about to engulf us,

but seeping beneath the cracks of my doors I see

only snow, powdery white, unstained.

The whining voice drowned out

by the whizzing sound of tires on ice,

face shadowed by flashing maps,

the crawl of winter warnings, accumulations.

I step into the jeweled night, yards moonswept

and dreamy, a soft shawl of snow muffling

any disturbance.

In this white season, when every fence

becomes a mural, gutters hang with cylinders

of glass, and windows are a work of art,

snow has trumped terror.

I am glad for every swirling flake, every angry cloud,

every day the wind screams from the sky

and warns us to go slow.