This is a poem about a snow angel, but in another way it could also be a poem about poetry itself. When you write a poem you bring something into the world….something that will have a life separate from you.

Snow Angel

It’s easy to make one,

lying on your back

in the newest snow.

You sweep your arms

up and down to make

a pattern that looks like wings.

Later you forget your creation,

go inside for some hot chocolate.

That’s when she rises from the snow,

takes a feathery breath, tries her wings.

She skims over frozen lakes

like the faintest handwriting.

Later when you climb beneath the covers

she peers in through your frosty window,

happy you called her into the world.

from A Writing Kind of Day

Grandma

On the first warm morning

she’s kneeling in the dirt,

smiling and humming

like she does making bread.

Grandma’s planting tulip bulbs

that are almost the same color

as her own worn knuckles.

Watch how her hands work

the dark mounds of soil

in that dirty confusion

of bulb and knuckle,

knuckle and bulb.

from Relatively Speaking: Poems About Family

          Scary Poem

         One poem frightens me

         from the first simile.

         Each metaphor

         strikes fear to my core.

         I’m deeply disturbed

         by one evil verb. 

        The rhymes of that verse

        make me fear the worst.

        No use pretending:
        I dread the ending.