a poem about snow days, stillness, candles, cardinals, warmth, growing pain, bare branches, snowman’s and gravesites
Snow piles high—
painting the world white
giving it a blank slate
until a cardinal flies through the gray,
a harsh red that feels like a question.
They say cardinals are signs,
of a spirit returning.
Is it him?
Perched in the branches,
watching me,
kicking at the snow,
the way he would if he were here.
-
I want to drive to his grave,
to the tree where he rests.
Build him a snowman—
one with crooked arms, a carrot or a scarf or a bright orange beanie,
something that would make him laugh.
But my car won’t move,
the tires are spinning in place,
and I am stuck imagining how,
the snow must cling onto those branches,
how beautiful they must look,
though beauty feels like a cruel thing today.
-
Inside, the candles waver,
their light too soft to hold me.
The bed offers a warmth,
but it’s not the same.
His body was warmer,
a kind of heat
that made me feel alive.
-
Outside, the world holds its breath.
The snow dampening every sound,
but my head fills and roars of noise, grief, regret.
Can the snow swallow the storm inside my head?
Make it stop!
No.
-
So I press my hand against the windowpane,
the cold meeting my heat—
my anger.
And there, as the glass blurs with breath,
i imagine a soundproof life.
One with no spinning wheels,
no restless thoughts,
just the snow
the tree,
and the cardinal—
a piece of him,
almost here.
