For When It Snows Part Two

Rain is no respecter of persons
the snow doesn’t give a soft white
damn Whom it touches

-e.e. cummings, Viva, 27

51 Kinds of Snow

1. Zen-blissed Buddha snow
silent, soft, fat flakes.

2. Born-again snow that melts
into the baltering mountain torrent
to baptize the redeemed of the river plains.

3.Episcopal surplice snow,
of choirs and choristers.

4. Modest Methodist snow doing all the good it can
in upright pews.

5. Catholic blanket snow likes wrongs hushed up.

6.Rest and recuperation for the Raj
Hindu snow on the slopes of Simla.

7. Whited evangelical snow like a
sepulcher over dead men’s bones.

8. Red-bucket Salvation Army bell-ringing snow.

9. Quaker snow on shivering aspens.

10. White-on-buttoned-up-black snow of the Amish.

11. Worst time of the year,
cold coming of it, trains-cancelled, windscreen-wiper and
camel-defeating journey snow.

12. Newly fallen snow in the eye of the grey-flanneled
emperor of whiteness snow man of Hartford
at the end of winter when afternoons return.

13. Drifted under the broken-hinged, blistered barn door
Wind-creaking country snow.

14. Bright sun-glare glazy snow across a sheeted field
blue in the moonlight.

15. The dust – every branch big with it – snow
from a hemlock tree.

16. Shrinking sun-shy snow that sleeps in the furrows of a ploughed field
after the thaw begins.

17. Treacherous ankle-axle-breaker snow over slippery step and pot-hole.

18. The hot burning chilblain snow of gloveless hands in a snowfight.

19. Subversive, secret agent slides-down-your-neck snow. 
Over-the-top-of-your-wellies –
Sock-soaking snow – when you have a long walk home
Because the bus couldn’t make it up the lane.

20. The light from yonder cottage window breaks
with a robin on the gate post – season’s greetings –
Norman Rockwell Stockbridge snow –
all New England Christmas tidy with skaters on the ice.

21. Sidelong flowing flakes of the trenches –
Pale with fingering stealth feeling for snow-dazed faces.

22. Welcomed snow that silences the street and closes the schools.

23. Deep and crisp and ee-ven
When the frost is cruu-el
Good king yonder peasant snow.

24. The snow that shoots
Up a rolled dollar bill.
Cut with a razor on a bathroom counter.
Or chopped on a marble slab.

25. City frozen sun-melt-baked ploughed snow that locks your car in a grey iron grip.

26. Blown snow
Arcing over the sidewalk in a shower of grit.

27. The hollowed yellow patched two-days-old street dog snow.

28. And the snow that wind tunnel swirls up between skyscrapers 

29. Pristine silent early morning waking snow.
the world made anew with soft, smooth edges
glittering as the daylight brightens.

30. And cosy cocoa, stove side and book when you don’t have to shovel snow.

31. Lake-effect – Enough-already! – the road-is-a-tunnel snow.

32. Media frenzy – we’re doomed  –
Hyperbolic, snopocalyse weather alert –
Strip the shelves of bread’n’milk,
try-to-buy-a-generator
emergency snow.

33. Helicopter hay-bale dropping snow
so deep it buries the sheep on moorland and fellside
and brings the wild ponies into town.

34. Crud and crust, pack and powder snow of the ski-trail

35. Housekeeping Chaucer snew of mete and drynke.

36. MacNeice’s spawning snow
Pink roses, tangerine – peel and portion –
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible.

37. The lonely sweep 
Of easy wind and downy flake snow
That tempts like a feather bed till duty calls.

38. Sacrificial death embracing snow
‘I am just going outside and may be some time.’

39. Grinds to a halt London snow
Silently sifting and veiling
road, roof and railing.

40. Helsinki ho-hum it’s winter snow.

41. On windless nights, high Rocky Mountains
florets fall in utter silence
freezing time and freeing souls.

42.Rare end-of-the-world Scout Finch Alabama snow. 

43. Napoleon snow that stops an army and

44. The killer snow that won the battle of Towton
Driving Yorkist arrows into Lancastrian hearts.

45. Typhoon defeating Soviet when we were allies snow

46. Prairie snow all My Ántonia bleak.

47. Thunder snow – announced by all the trumpets of the sky

48. The early season pruning snows of leafy October.

49. Old English snow from the icebound, rime-rimmed north
On the seafarer’s brine-path.

50. There’s viral social snow
On everyone’s page.
Everyone posts. Everyone shares,
How good it was to shovel the walks.
Linger in bed. Get up late
Have time for stew, bake cinnamon bread.
Arty Instagram show-off snow
measured on the deck, posted. See?
Look at that chair – whited and rounded.
And Facebook puppy’s first snow with cats leaping
And footprints and what I cooked today.
Twitter snow that sets cars asliding and delays your flight
And email snow – I cannot come tonight.

51. And that magic that fell in fading blue light when you were in the bar with quarters on the pool table before the subway stopped running. A long time ago now. Snow.

Many thanks to those who accepted the invitation to contribute. Credits and acknowledgments for all my borrowings. I may have missed some. Let me know: 1, Lisel Mueller. 2. W.H.Auden 11. T.S Eliot. 12. Wallace Stevens, Terrance Hayes 15 Robert Frost, Thomas Hardy 20 William Shakespeare 21. Wilfred Owen 23. John Mason Neale 29. Cilla 36. Louis MacNeice 37. Robert Frost 39. Robert Bridges 41. Lynne Barry  47. Annette Clarke-Jervoise, Ralph Waldo Emerson 49. Old English Anonymous. 50. Jane Hirshfield

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