In the city a million children pine for snow,
but in the mountains my children have enough 
to draw pictures on the rented car,
to make forts in the field,
to stash snowballs on the deck rails,
and even 'bury' my older daughter in a snow grave.

I watch 
as it falls
through the air.
It sets 
on blades of grass,
needles of Scotch pines,
two birds on a power line,
the garden of hard fallow soil ,
the ice on the small frozen pond,
the long ramp to the shed,
the bare willow twigs scattered in islands.

I walk to the upper field.
Under a dome of white clouds,
light comes from everywhere, casts no shadow.
the loose stones in the walls far from the house are
weathered, gray, covered with lichen.

Snow falls, flake by flake,
on every fissure, every crack
of every stone,
each a mass of white muffled tone.
It crinkles as it lands.
I ask the snow,
"Teach me.  Teach  me, how to live."



			Brandywine
			2/2/99