It's snowing this afternoon and there are no flowers. <br />There is only this sound of falling, quiet and remote, <br />Like the memory of scales descending the white keys <br />Of a childhood piano--outside the window, palms! <br />And the heavy head of the cereus, inclining, <br />Soon to let down its white or yellow-white. <br /> <br />Now, only these poor snow-flowers in a heap, <br />Like the memory of a white dress cast down . . . <br />So much has fallen. <br /> And I, who have listened for a step <br />All afternoon, hear it now, but already falling away, <br />Already in memory. And the terrible scales descending <br />On the silent piano; the snow; and the absent flowers abounding.<br /><br />Donald Justice<br /><br />http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/absences/
