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Still Delighting in Snow
by
Richard Greene


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I still delight in snow
some seventy years after I first did.
Though my body now is tentative,
my spirit weary of life's contests,
I still take pleasure
in that world of whiteness
just as I did when I resided
in a frame so small
I can no longer remember how it felt.
Was I an infant?
No way of knowing,
but when I see snow fall
I sense boy-feelings of decades ago,
flakes on my lashes,
against my skin,
the bracing scent,
the compact blizzard
as I tumbled from my sled
a scattering of cold powder
turning my eyebrows white,
as now do other causes,
my clothes encrusted
the wetness soaking through,
the warm kitchen
where I disrobed
("Get out of those wet clothes!"
my mother said)
fading
into the one where I sit now
tapping out this poem.


© by Richard Greene.
Used with the author's permission.

 

 


Richard Greene began writing poetry in the 8th grade, inspired by the opening lines of Longfellow's “Evangeline”—“This is the forest primeval. The murmuring pines and the hemlocks / Bearded in moss and in garments green, indistinct in the twilight"—which he was required to read in class. In college, after a classmate deemed Richard's rhyming poem “trite,”  he stopped writing until, a couple of years later, a class with Henry Rago, subsequently editor of Poetry magazine, inspired him to resume his efforts. But poetry fell by the wayside for almost forty years as a busy career in international development consumed his life. As retirement approached, however, Richard's dedication to poetry returned; he has now self-published a book (Explorations, Antrim House Books), and shares a "poem of the week" (get on the mailing list by requesting it at greeneplace@gmail.com). Richard lives in Nyack, New York; learn more about him at www.greenepage.net.

 

 


Post New Comment:
Anastasia:
I miss playing in the snow! But I'm glad not to have to shovel the driveway any more!
Posted 12/15/2020 03:00 PM
Jancan:
Such a beautiful, moving message about how certain sights, sounds, and smells return us--just briefly--to childhood!
Posted 12/14/2020 11:12 AM
Lori Levy:
Great expression of your delight in the snow.
Posted 12/09/2020 03:46 PM
cork:
Warming our hands in hot water was not the best idea.
Posted 12/09/2020 09:04 AM
wayne.goodling@yahoo.com:
Thank for reminding me of what it was like in younger days.
Posted 12/09/2020 09:04 AM


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