Writing Again, Somewhat

[dreamcatchings]

Warrior of Snow Covered World
by me

You want to live someplace where
The snow doesn't win; where it's beaten
Back, handled properly or forgotten about
For long periods of time, a specter, a fairytale
Of the North that only creeps down
Once every few years, the mythical giant
Come for his tithe of slushy roadways,
Closed schools and children making angels
Instead of gold and virgins and goat blood.
This is the way it was like living in the thrumming
Heart of New Orleans, bathed in beads,
Crawfish and spicier everything everywhere.
Snow was for winter, Christmas, when your mother
Boarded you onto the Greyhound to begin the trek
From South to North, the time passing with plastic
Ponies and chicken sandwiches from machines
That revolved and glowed. It was a trip marked
With books read by lamplight until your mother
Made you turn them off so the other passengers
Could sleep without the sight of an eight year old
Girl plowing her way through the forests of Murkwood
With Bilbo Baggins beside her. The trip you recall,
The stops and the food and the trickets,
Yet the journey from bus station to grandmother's
House looms in your mind as darkness, a hollow
Once full of stage couches and thieves your
Grandfather whispers as the car dips, the trees
Loom, snowy and silent and foreboding; you
Close your eyes, press your head into the shoulder
Of your mother who smells of cigarettes and nerves
And quiet resentment until the hollow is gone.
Thirty seconds, forty five, will never feel that long
Again until you're standing looking at someone
Who never sees you except maybe this time.
Maybe. Not that you know, not that you ask
Because asking is begging and begging is
Weakness and weakness is wrong.

Or if there must be snow, you want
It to be more like college where you lived
On a island of dorms and buildings five,
Six city blocks big. Small enough to walk
To class without crossing the road, get meals
Without leaving or feeling the slip and slide of tires
On ice that make your heart beat as fast
As if reacting to kisses from someone who hears
You sometimes. Even in England, snow was better.
It was heavier, fell once and lingered, the way everything
Good should act. You would trade days of pondering,
Mentally calculating sick time lost and inches
On the roadway, trying to determine safety
Measured against responsibility for sleet
At Hadrian's Wall, your body covered
With soft ice that ran into your clothes,
Your shoes, jacket and gloves. The way you
Sat, after, in a small tea shop drinking
Vanilla currant tea and having a sandwich,
Watching the world cold and hard outside
Knowing there was another bus ride waiting,
One that went back to a manor too cold for your spiced
Blood but full of the warmth of eyes to see, ears
To hear and mouths to defend you. There are
Many ways to defeat the snow, you've found.