Whatever the cause, the smell of it pervades the placid night, hanging in the still air like an olfactory omen. I can't see them now but I remember the new leaves on the oaks as I saw them today, some pale green and others drooping and slightly brown, perhaps damaged by the recent colder nights. It is too late now for snow, for should it come many of spring's premature leaves would surely be killed. Even as it is the foliage might be diminished this year, giving less shade when the torrid summer days arrive. The snow, though sorely missed, must not come late. It will not be welcome now, doomed as it would be to bring only a threat of summer made even worse by the damage it would do.
Inhaling the chill I watch the stars, which are paled by the waxing moon that has not yet descended among the trees. The night is cold enough that my own exhalations are visible as a thin vapor lit by the moon's light. The entire world seems to be exhaling tonight, though only I leave this visible trace. The air seems ancient, worn. I watch the shadows of the trees creep east and regret the snow that never came. I try to remember how snow smells, but can't. The cold sweat overpowers even memory.
Sunday Verse
Snow
by Anne Sexton
Snow, blessed snow,
comes out of the sky
like bleached flies.
The ground is no longer naked.
The ground has on its clothes.
Trees poke out of sheets
and each branch wears the sock of God.
There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
I bite it.
Someone once said:
Don't bite till you know
if it's bread or stone.
What I bite is all bread,
rising, yeasty as a cloud.
There is hope.
There is hope everywhere.
Today God gives milk
and I have the pail.