A woman watches the snow
as it falls out the window.
She reads another book
to her daughter, this one
about the sea.
The phone does not ring.
The door does not open.
An hour falls away. Outside,
the sun is fierce and the sky pellucid.
The woman and her daughter
paint beans. They turn them
into a game and count
how many sides are green.
Outside, another squall.
The woman listens
as the girl makes up a song.
They eat soup. Read another book.
The sun moves an hour across the floor.
The day goes on and on this way.
The woman doesn’t once think,
I am happy. Happiness is her.
The snow falls. The sun comes.
Today, she greets them both the same.
The woman is lost, perhaps. Only not.
She is finding herself in the current,
unconcerned for the moment
if the tide is going out
or coming in.
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Emily Dickinson: Life is a spell so exquisite…
There are some days that inundate us with calm centeredness. I think it’s quite a good thing you’ve come into the following day still acceptant and opened, rather than grasping for what you were gifted yesterday.
You have certainly captured the weather around here lately, the squalls of flurry and hard sunlight. Weaving that outside weather into the personal weather is surely more meaningful forecast. And I like how this ends, with the current and the tide.
One suggestion: line #2 says “…as it falls OUT the window…” which feels a bit awkward, as if the snow is tumbling from inside the house. Perhaps the word “outside” instead of “out” or switch the phrases to read,
“The woman watches the snow
out the window as it falls…”