Snowledge

“Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know”

Ralph Waldo Emerson

A white winter. A city walloped with feathery flakes. Layers collect and cower on sidewalks and sills. In minds. Inches then feet of blanched and benevolent frost. The hum of laughter and shovels. The song of a season.

The innocence doesn't last. Time and traffic, days and rays, and it fades. White grows gray. Solid turns slush. Puddles on corners.

But before it goes, memories come. Floating down like the flakes. Memories of faded faces. Of Irish hats and tattered jeans and oil skin coats. Of walks with dogs in winter white.

In the glow of snow, the color comes. The hue of him, who he was. Who was he? He was the man who brought me donuts on Sundays. He was the man who called me Maids. He was the man who walked the dogs through the seasons of his days.

He was the man with the mustache and the mind. He was the man who loved Mom, and us. He was the man in my life.

He was the man who loved snow. I think I remember this about him.

Or maybe it's just the picture. The one that hangs in our powder room in the home he will never see. This is what we have now. Pictures. Memories. Snow.

My mind dances to today. To little people whom he will not know. Joyful creatures who stumble and tumble in the whiteness out back. With freedom, they frolic and fall. With tiny hands, they build a big man.

A great man. A man faceless with possibility. He will not last forever, this man. Nobody does. But he is here now. Standing tall in the whimsy of whiteness, whistling in the winter wind, watching the world, waiting to melt, wondering what's next.

In the darkness, he lingers, limbless and loving, a poet made of powder, alone and aware. A man of snowledge.

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Do you enjoy snow and seasons? Does the winter whiteness force you to slow down and remember what was?