Early October Snow
by Robert Haight
(published in his 2013 book, Feeding Wild Birds, from Mayapple Press)
It will not stay.
But this morning we wake to pale muslin
stretched across the grass.
The pumpkins, still in the fields, are planets
shrouded by clouds.
The Weber wears a dunce cap
and sits in the corner by the garage
where asters wrap scarves
around their necks to warm their blooms.
The leaves, still soldered to their branches
by a frozen drop of dew, splash
apple and pear paint along the roadsides.
It seems we have glanced out a window
into the near future, mid-December, say,
the black and white photo of winter
carefully laid over the present autumn,
like a morning we pause at the mirror
inspecting the single strand of hair
that overnight has turned to snow.
(Lines two and six are variations of lines by Herb Scott and John Woods.)
"It will not stay" is what I tell myself when we get the occassional snow here. I am not a snow person. I am okay (ish) with cold, but snow? Love it in paintings, on mountains I don't have to drive over, and poems, but I am happy to see it all melt.
Besides this first line, which drew me in immediately, I love all the descriptions used to describe the snow, the plants, and the plants in the snow. My favorite:
The leaves, still soldered to their branches
by a frozen drop of dew, splash
apple and pear paint along the roadsides.
Yes, it's visual, but I also get the scents of the fruit, the feeling of frozen water, and the sound of suddenly frozen things dropping to the ground.
It is right after this that the speaker takes us into the near-future--December--with another great image that turns into that incredible simile ("like a morning") and this poem becomes much more complex. It is not just a great description of a slightly snowy day, but a poem about aging, and how surprising that is.
The connection is unexpected (just like that snow on the ground and in our hair), but not unearned. The poet has given us readers metaphors and a sense that something else is going on.
I only post wonderful poems here on this blog, and there are so many out there. And this, my friends, is another one!
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