Poetry

This morning, I actually had to scrape the ice off of my car windows. In honor of the coming onslaught of winter, I'm posting a poem I wrote for Red last December, a few weeks before she moved in with me.

Snow Dream

I wake up in the morning,
To a blanched landscape of crystalline shards,
To a dreamscape of frozen wonder.
The trees bear their burden, groaning with the added weight,
As I slog through the waste to my inhumed car.

I wait for the ice to turn to water and run down my windshield,
And wish that she were here.
She’d be beautiful right now,
Her blue eyes flashing from beneath her toboggan,
Bits of water in a world of ice.
Her hair would dance across her shoulders as she ducked and dodged,
A slushball held tight in her mittened hand while she sought her target.
SMACK!
Cold water runs down my collar as I turn to stare at her.
She screams and we tumble head over heels into a snow bank
Where we land, arm in arm, lip to lip
And somehow,
We aren’t cold.

After an eternity that seems like minutes,
The cold has finally permeated our nest enough to freeze our toes.
“Let’s go home,” I say.
Inside, the smells of hot cocoa and woodsmoke fill the air,
Points of light glow off our coniferous houseguest,
And Bing fills our ears with a song about the first snowfall of the winter.
We strip our shoes and socks and sit before the fire,
Content to just hold hands and sip.

I can see out the windows of my car.
I slip into gear and begin the long, treacherous, snowy journey to work.