After snow’s no longer falling on an earth
barren and grateful for the brush of
purification
(a drift is a serendipity, shawl, flowing robe,
a brocade mantle, white on white),
it’s alert
to transformation, a sphinx looking up at
time’s daily sweep, changing shadows and
slow revelations
of shape. Snow knows no more than a sphinx.
“Now” is merely “now” and,
relative to history,
a magnification of identity. How else to be,
than as a seasonal tendency, groping
to cheat death.
