snow at night
by katie ford
Snow at Night (2014)
by Katie Ford
I prefer it even to love,
alone and without ghost
it falls a hard weather,
a withdrawing room
that revives me to stolen daylight
in which I feel no wish
to brush a gleaming finish
over the sheen-broken glass
I’ve arranged and rearranged,
an apprentice of mosaics
who will not be taught but asks
to be left alone with the brittle year
so carnivorous of all I’d made.
But the snow I love covers
my beasts and seas,
my ferns and spines
worn through and through.
I will change your life, it says,
to which I say please.
yesterday morning there was a very, very light snow here in brooklyn. i looked out my window and noticed a group of three people all crowded at one open window with their heads poked out, marveling at the snow. it was one of the sweetest scenes i have ever seen, but of course, a little sad, because it has been such an un-snowy winter. even those of us who hate the cold love the snow; there is something so mystical about it, like it’s coming from another land. at night, it reflects moonlight and somehow shines. i love that the word blanket is always used to describe a heavy layer of snow, because it denotes something that circulates warmth. in katie ford’s poem it blankets a kind of pain, and when it melts away perhaps there will be fresh space, without even a ghost of what was there before. xo sam attached is a pic i took in prospect park after a snowstorm that this poem reminded me of.
