*
Minus twenty-two, prior to wind-chill. How low.
As Nelson Ball wrote, bird tracks on hard snow. At this
level of cold, only evidence remains.
The backyard trestled by paw-tracks. Akin to Billy,
wandering the neighbourhoods of Bill Keane’s The Family Circus. Birds, flurry. A rabbit. The occasional skunk.
Last summer, another parent in the playground offered:
there is more than one rabbit.
American poet Claire Schwartz tweets a screen-shot of one
of her poems, featured in the latest issue of Bennington Review. “What is a nation which does not save / poetry?
What is a poem but the gathering / of lines?”
A layering of dust. Sparkles. A body can be.
*
The snow coats the yard. Wake up. Our otherwise traffic-thick.
The roads today, terrible.
The snow coats the car. Three inches. Blast the heat and defrost.
We address each other in signals.
A twitter account for Emily Dickinson lyrics. A twitter
account for out of context Anne Carson lines, specifically from her Autobiography of Red (1998). The poems,
as Jack Spicer wrote, can no better live on their own than can we.
How much is too much? The Snow Report features daily online
reports on snowfall across Canada, set specifically for those who ski. Resort
stats, base depths, number of lifts, acreage and open runs.
It speaks not to driving conditions, or possible accidents.
It speaks not to bus or school cancellations or road closures. It speaks not to
what lies beneath. It speaks not to the silence of snowfall.
*
Air duct cleaning services. Ten years of unsolicited phone
calls. The no-contact list, please.
Bring your secrets to light. May they burn.
On this day in 1773. In 1304. In 1955. Words. Feel lost
under flurries.
Lightweight. Whiplash wind and snowy curls.
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