Dad shovels snow

Like it’s going out of style.

It’s past our knees out here.

It makes me laugh

Cause I love snow so much.

Knee deep in new.

 

 

There’s this stretch

Of ravine

Behind the cabin,

all that generous snow,

Lumped up on the branches

And all is still

‘cept you can hear

A woodpecker knocking,

A wee chickadee with his smart black cap and chin strap,

And Dad

shovelling.

 

 

 

I need all this.

This space.

This snow.

These trees.

This new white world

Like a blank page.

Fresh.

 

 

 

And when we come stomping in,

Red-cheeked,

I love

The fireplace

And a good book

And losing track of time.

 

 

We suit up cause the shovelling is done

And the sleds are out

And there’s fresh powder everywhere.

I feel 30 pounds heavier when I’m done

And I look like a storm trooper.

 

 

There’s so much snow out in the fields

That it piles up round the skis

Till you can’t see them

And it poofs over the windshield

As the back end sinks down

Deep.

The powder whips round me

Till I’m a cloud.

I follow Dad.

He’s a cloud too

With one red tail light

That I can see in the growing dusk.

 

 

It reminds me of the children of Israel,

Following a cloud.

Couldn’t have been easy.

You can’t see much ahead when you follow a cloud.

Like walking in a fog.

You just gotta hope

It’s leading you ahead

Safe.

 

 

We plow into the trails

And the trees bend over top

Heavy with snow.

Big zig zagging footprints

Criss cross the path

Where a moose was just tromping.

Dad stops and points 

And a thickly furred 

Young deer

Bounds away

White tail up.

 

 

Back across the fields

The snow just piles up

Around our legs

And cascades into

Our laps.

More than enough

new.

 

We head back

And I can’t feel my nose

Or my upper lip

Cause I forgot my balaclava.

I take my gloves off.

My fingers are immobile in seconds

And I need to think hard

To make them unstrap my helmet.

 

 

The fire is perfect.

Dad carries in more wood.

We laugh at the Andy Griffith show,

And eat ribs with our fingers.

I can’t put my book down

Till it’s done

And I’m out 

Like a light.

 

 

In the calm pink

Of the next morning

I think

About the blizzard

We drove through to get here,

The storm that left

In it’s wake

All this beauty,

All this new

To play in

And work in

And enjoy.

Some see the storms

And the snow

As inconvenient

And despise it.

Maybe it’s cause they never saw this.

All is still.

All the new

Lies everywhere

Knee deep.