Watching the Snow Fall

I’m writing this in the middle of a swirling snowstorm, as buildings drift in and out of view. The fire flickers warmth while the wind does its best to suck it out of the house. The wind is winning, cooling my tea as it sits, waiting for me to notice.

I wrote today’s poem the day after another such fall, having stood at a window to see the accumulation on the ledge. It was a dry snow, each flake knowing its own name under the blue sky.

First Version:

Snow/light

Each flake carries a reflection of the sun from
the darkness of space, each crystal remembers each
crystal’s origin, the sun’s heart, the furnace
that hammers the hot edges into
shape. Each hot arm remembers
its origin, the dark space
it came from, the silence
it once floated in, formless before
the occupying began, when night meant
the sleep of unknowing, the shapelessness
of peace. Each cell holds
the memory of what could
have been, the scissor cuts
of prettiness hung
on a proud door, the asymmetry
lauded with kind voice the way
each flake is hailed
as solo on a sleeve before
the melt. Kindness can be measured
in drifts piling up before
a door, in snow shovelled
in trees lined and crevassed with the soft
white insulation beetles count
on. You sit here imagining
their tiny feet, the coldness
of their hands, remembering.

Some poems come as a gift, simply flowing out in a coherent structure that stays constant throughout the editing process. It helps if I don’t stop to edit while writing. That way, I don’t impede the ideas that have been forming at the back of my mind.

This is one of those poems. It was wordy and I had to do some serious pruning. But that’s nothing new for my work. Otherwise, the structure was sound. The only big decision I had to make was how much of a mix I wanted between the natural elements and the personal.

I decided I wanted to turn it down a little, make it more implicit. So I replaced “hot arm” with “tiny arm” and stopped the drift into memories of “when night meant/the sleep of unknowing, the shapelessness/of peace” by replacing it with “when night meant/peace”. I took out the word “voice” but then expanded on the metaphor of the beetles in the closing lines.

These changes were made to allow the snow and its weight to become a greater metaphor, one my narrator uses without naming. In the end, the poem passed two important tests: my own standards and Don Domanski’s approval. I hope you like it too.

Final Version:

Snow/light

Each flake reflects the sun from space’s
darkness, each crystal remembers
earth’s origin, the sun’s heart, the furnace
that melted rocks into the planet’s
core. Each tiny arm remembers
the place it came from, the silence
it floated in before
the occupying began, when night meant
peace. Each cell holds
the memory of what could
have been, the scissor cuts hung
on a proud window, each flake hailed
as solo on a sleeve before
the melt, measuring kindness
in drifts piling up before
an unshovelled door, trees lined
and crevassed with the soft
white insulation beetles count on. You sit
imagining the tiny feet, the coldness
of bellies under snow’s weight, the weight
of flakes landing in a flurry the sun
can’t imagine.

PrintFriendlyShare

Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Notify me of followup comments via e-mail. You can also subscribe without commenting.