A Pair of Snow Poems

by Jonathan Scott 

Middle Alabama Snow

We wake to snow
But still incredulous,
Our disbelief like sleep
In dream-deep eyes.

In outsized flakes
Like kindergartners cut
From origami folds,
The snow descends

And reunites
On roofs and shrubbery.
The window watches on
As we look through.

Our wonderment
Is tempered by distrust.
We know the heavy sigh
And shoulder-slump.

Our mittens are
Mismatched and our long-johns
Don’t fit and itch, but time
Won’t stop for us.

It never does.
By afternoon, the thaw
Will break a febrile sweat
Across the knolls

Of matted grass.
With snow in blotches
Like hives-mottled flesh
On hoods of cars

And yellow lawns,
The purple pansy will
Erect its head,
Revivified.
So quickly we tie

Our tennis shoes and zip
Our raincoats up. We grab
The boogie-boards

And laundry bins
To sled the nearest slope
And crash and climb and crash
Again. Again.

Then not so smoothly,
Now in mostly
Mud,
But again.

Seldom

Corinne of the deep Dixie cannot sleep
Through snowfall. Through rain,
Yes, deep like roots, heavy as mud;

But snow comes soft, nearly silent, like gnats
Around streetlamps, and must
Be watched until the last flake
Melts or drifts away.

Born in Virginia, residing in Alabama and sometimes sojourning in Arkansas, Jonathan Scott is a decidedly Southern writer. He studied English and philosophy as an undergraduate, earning Bachelor’s degrees in each at The University of Montevallo and the University of Alabama, respectively. He went on to gain his Master’s in Creative Writing from UAB. His writing has appeared most recently in Floodwall, Poet Lore, Unsplendid and Weave.