I spend a lot of time these days shovelling snow. <br />Moving it from off the narrow paths <br />to under a laurel oak, <br />or behind the lean-to, <br />where I keep the birch logs dry. <br /> <br />Occasionally, I’ll part a drift <br />and discover the scent of wild strawberries. <br />It would drive any man half-mad <br />trying to find them; <br />cowering somewhere beneath their heart-shaped leaves. <br /> <br />I dream about snowflakes the size of goose feathers <br />and how they settle on my closed eyelids <br />and inside the wood shelter, <br />smothering the contours of everything, <br />and I grope for air. <br /> <br />I will shift snow tomorrow, <br />as I poach the white frills of an egg, <br />and edit an article on hot-air ballooning in Mexico. <br />I’ll struggle with it until spring soaks it up and I find you, <br />lonely and mean in a bed of bindweed.<br /><br />Alexander James Allen<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/shovelling-snow/
