Snowstorm - Maurice de Vlaminck
There is harsh
biting winter
with winds that cut
your cheeks, water your eyes
blurring your vision.
A winter that numbs
your toes till you think
they have fallen off.
A winter that stiffens
your back and neck
till you think you are
the only living example
of rigor mortis.
And there is the winter
with bare trees
whose branches lift
the snow in praise.
The winter whose sky
paints a canpoy
with white and shadows
that cover us for days,
even weeks.
The ground, the roads,
virgin white at first,
the metamorphosis
into sculptured drifts
ashen ruts in streets
a blinding cover
far as the eye can see.
Michael Allyn Wells
