Lyrics
Fluffy clusters lie high in the pines,
pile on rooftops, lazy, supine,
draped and sinuous on fences and gates,
masking the car as its windows glaze.
Under the roof of the covered porch,
I watch flakes land in drifts and stands-
powdering my face and hands.
Granules fly in freezing strands,
in waves of streaming frozen bands
slumping into impromptu sculpture,
transforming woodpiles into sleeping elephants,
making lilac bushes shapeless mounds,
a world powdered and packed,
a magician's act
that makes the whole world disappear.
Branches arc under the mass,
trunks withstand an Arctic blast
of diamond shards and shattered glass.
Ponderous roofs on old barns creak;
blinding winding trails, bleak,
soon indecipherable.
Across the drive, the white creek bank
is all a blank, a wind-swept blur
with prickly spikes of frozen grass,
as if some frozen porcupine
poked its quills
among snow-topped cattails
and tangled willow branch.
Deer have hidden, silent, still,
nuzzled close in a favorite nest.
Swirls of snowflakes now conceal
the spikes of grass and the frozen creek.
Obscured and vague, the white trees reach and
the branches stretch in an endless blend of limb and sky,
now lost in the whining blizzard's shriek.
I gaze into the tempest's haze
as winter's fury predictably plays.
I've transfixed for who-knows-how-long
and find I'm nearly frozen in place.
I pull a blanket all around and leave the frenzy of the storm
to go inside where it is warm,
anticipating softer days.