A Gentle Fall of Snow
Currier & Ives
How can such a thing
Send a frisson of discomfort
Through these old bones?
A scene plucked
From a Currier & Ives print?
Smoke curling from a distant chimney?
Skaters on the old Mill Pond?
And the tinkling of sleigh bell harnesses?
Once, when the world was bright and supple
And time stretched out its arms,
I leapt bounding and careening
As light as the flakes themselves
From drift to drift
Tumbling often but harmlessly
From season to season.
I remember in those deep recesses
Reserved for dreams and fantasies
How gently it fell.