The Poetry of Mary K O'Melveny

SNOW FRIEZE



 

 

The shapes are barely visible.

Hints at best.

A table here.  A bird bath there.

Car roofs.  Gym set slide and ladder.

Figures with shovels flailing.  Sluggishly.

The whorling winds

Making everything curl and bend

Against form and ligature.

 

One cannot help wondering,

As the whiteness descends,

If it could tamp down

The world’s great angers

Emitting so much heat

But brightening up so little.

Imagine them all snuffed out,

Not even a thin steam rising.

 

This palest of tempests

Stopping everything cold

As it falls and drifts shamelessly

Downward and out/up,

Furies vanishing like errant thoughts,

Tempers trapped, Vesuvial, Mid-scream.

Hostilities in bas-relief,

Modern day Elgin Marbles.

 

Savagery becoming sculptural decoration,

An architectural chill,

A calming within the storm

Turning everything somnolent. 

Quietude laying down its laws.

Immaculate pale riders obeying

Without question.  The unsoiled landscape

Glistening.  Snowy silence marching on.

 

 

 

This poem was first published by Allegro Poetry Magazine in June, 2016.




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