*

I was very young.

Perhaps three or four.

All bundled up looking like a penguin.

My world had been a world of interiors

Of rooms, playpens, dresser drawers, and hallways.

But now, surrounded by pine trees and black night

My world was a back porch light.

On the porch of a cabin

open to the night sky.

I had never seen snow.

Yet now, insulated against the cold

in jackets, sweaters, mucklucks,

and heavy small boots: flakes were falling.

They came from the black sky like tiny

round, white, fairies.

Oh yes, I had seen pictures of snow.

But not the real thing.

I conceptualized mounds of the soft white stuff

burying our whole family

ten feet under.

We would be lost for days!

But this was not to be.

my first snow was not a great snow.

Just a few separate flakes

dancing down from a black sky

lit by a porch light.

Kissing my face with promise.

*