Old Snow
Old snow has lost its poetry
the feathery flakes dusting fronds
of fir and spruce in dazzling white
become gritty granules of grey ice
humped in dirty piles along the edges of roads and driveways
No harbinger of spring, only its precursor,
winter stubbornly refusing to give way
when its time is up
warm and sunny days belied by still cold reminders
of Maine’s longest season
Old snow has lost its poetry
no longer a hibernal playground, just a nuisance,
clogging ditches and slogging woodland paths
not a thing to wonder at but
only to wish away
Alas! to have left glory and beauty and wonder behind
your only merit the fading memory of
what you once were
now sullied and unsightly and unheeded
you are nothing but an unwanted vestige