It is a blizzard tonight, and after dinner
we go out, walk to the corner
against stinging snow,
the cat bounding after,
and cross, stepping over dark tire ruts,
up the side street to the corner house
in which an old poor couple live.
Their yard full of roses in the summer,
now the holiday is over,
they have changed their yard decorations
from manger scene to polar bear and penguins
and snow man with red-light-bulb nose—
plywood flats carved out with a jig saw.
My daughters disturb
the inviolate blanket in front of their house,
then we start back because of the cold,
the cat taking refuge in the bushes,
and cross again
to our undecorated house,
the girls frisking, rolling in the snow,
I going around to the garage to get firewood,
then back again to the front
where my wife is taking the younger in.
The older wants to stay out,
so we go back around,
I plodding down the walk,
she plowing into the drifts.
She makes an angel.
I take her hands as she rises,
help her not to mar the whirring form.
Inside by the fire, I turn the radio on,
some modern orchestral piece,
then Brahms's Third,
playing as I write this—
my life struck through with miracle,
even if I don't feel it.
1987
