Oh, lady. You are heavy. From inside, watching you whisk your veils of snow dust about, you seem light as a ballerina. Outside, disinterring my buried cars, I find you are as ponderous as the ruins of a library. Books are heavy and so, shovel by shovel, is your snow. Behind the car, away from the road, lighter, fluffier paperbacks. Next to the road, pressed by the plow against my car door, salt and sand sprinkled in as stiffener, hardbacks, leather bound. stacked.
This snow that you leave behind was once water invited up into the air for the grand adventure of a storm. Now, it's abandoned and cursed. There's a wall of snow next to my fence which was built with repetitive bend, shove, lift and throw over and over. Now it's higher than I am. If a sister storm of yours comes later this week, will I be able to heft the loads over the mountain I've already raised--and I understand snow is coming Friday? Oi vey.
Once my cars are freed up, I more or less forget the snow, as do you, Juno, heading northeast as you are into senescence. But a new drama is beginning under the snow cover. Progressively the light fluffy crystals congeal into crust. Mice tunnel underneath protected from the cold. Bernd Heinrich, the Maine naturalist, says that even birds burrow in it.
Progressively the snow changes as it ages, then there's a new layer on top, and another. A whole nival geology arises. You may move on, sister-wife of Jupiter, forgetting what you've left behind, but as cover and as pack, it begins to establish its own presence, make its own contribution.
All the neighborhood is out. Across the street an army of shovelers plus a blower. Their driveway, swish, clean. I'm still feeling my shoulder and back muscles jittery; and the memory of the overwhelming prospect--so much snow!--that confronted me when I finally went out still appalls me. So much. So much! You've really been too good to me, Juno.
Wait, it's still snowing. My windshields are dusted again and the plows are creating their little berms next to my car. Juno, if you'd like to go, please don't let me keep you.
This snow that you leave behind was once water invited up into the air for the grand adventure of a storm. Now, it's abandoned and cursed. There's a wall of snow next to my fence which was built with repetitive bend, shove, lift and throw over and over. Now it's higher than I am. If a sister storm of yours comes later this week, will I be able to heft the loads over the mountain I've already raised--and I understand snow is coming Friday? Oi vey.
Once my cars are freed up, I more or less forget the snow, as do you, Juno, heading northeast as you are into senescence. But a new drama is beginning under the snow cover. Progressively the light fluffy crystals congeal into crust. Mice tunnel underneath protected from the cold. Bernd Heinrich, the Maine naturalist, says that even birds burrow in it.
Progressively the snow changes as it ages, then there's a new layer on top, and another. A whole nival geology arises. You may move on, sister-wife of Jupiter, forgetting what you've left behind, but as cover and as pack, it begins to establish its own presence, make its own contribution.
All the neighborhood is out. Across the street an army of shovelers plus a blower. Their driveway, swish, clean. I'm still feeling my shoulder and back muscles jittery; and the memory of the overwhelming prospect--so much snow!--that confronted me when I finally went out still appalls me. So much. So much! You've really been too good to me, Juno.
Wait, it's still snowing. My windshields are dusted again and the plows are creating their little berms next to my car. Juno, if you'd like to go, please don't let me keep you.
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