A Deep River Year 2017

Yesterday was a spring-like day--almost 60 degrees--when it was almost possible to forget that it was still February in New England. We knew what was coming. All the weather forecasters were predicting a big snow for today, and as usual, folks raced to the grocery stores to stock up on batteries, bread and milk as if they would be stranded for weeks.


Today I got up at daybreak in hopes of taking the dogs for their morning walk before the snow started.... The streets were quiet, the sidewalks empty, and the dogs' noses were in the air as if they scented something coming. We were covered in white by the time we stomped through the back door, and I had just a little time to fill a few of the bird feeders. All day long the blizzard blew. Inside, we were warm, safe. This good day provided a time to stop and rest, to go nowhere except in memory. To be a boy again, on a sled with metal runners, flying down a snow-covered hill. To make angels in the drifts, build snow forts and an arsenal of snowballs, and to come inside with numb fingers for hot cocoa. To sense the silence that fills the space between our heartbeats and which holds the moments which have not yet unfolded.

 Snowstorm


It is morning, early,
and I walk upstream,
into a current of wind,
and I am snow.
It blows across the world,
bearing the scent of prairies
and the pulse of oceans.
Later the birds swarm
beneath swaying feeders,
answering an ancient call
to stoke their meager engines
against the cold,
even as they sing.
And we, too, seek some sustenance
in this forbidding weather:
sip our coffee,
and stay still in kind, familiar rooms
as winter's breath rattles windows
where we stand and watch
the silence pile up
on our drifted hills.