A Poem About the Snow

Here is a poem that my friend - Rabbi Ethan Seidel - wrote about the snow. I think the imagery is quite striking.

Wet snow fell all yesterday.
At first, the trees -
With white outlines, boughs lifted high -
Prayed with us,
Thanking God for the hopeful sight.
By night, though, they began to sink,
Their lower branches pinned to the ground,
The cold dark freezing them in place.
So, before I went to bed
I went out and shook those I could reach.

With just a tap, my dogwood
(Always so barren this time of year)
Shed its load and sprung right back,
Indignantly, without a word of thanks.
And Fuji (our red maple baby),
Her branches still too thin to hold much snow
Looked confident and gay
Though buried almost to her neck.

So I went 'round back
To my row of Leyland Cypress,
Their evergreenness dark against their pressing load.
Unable to let go of much
Their bowed branches lifted just a bit,
Too morose to feel what I had done.

Maybe they were worried
By my neighbor's brittle holly 'cross the yard,
One huge trunk of which had split,
Landing on the row of boxwood
I had wanted to cut back,
And killing the paw paw twig
I'd planted just last year.

But now I think they're wrong -
I think the holly may have missed it
Though I won't know for sure
(It being completely covered by the snow)
Until the spring.

Ethan Seidel             February 2010

Comments