Drove home from Flagstaff, today,
After visiting our college daughter
For our younger daughter’s birthday weekend.
Been, as they say, an ‘El Nino’
Winter, here, in Arizona. Rain and clouds
And snow, at higher elevations. Actually
Welcomed as a whole, but, difficult
To navigate. Iceburg-snowbanks
Dominated Flagstaff’s before and afters,
History and future. This morning, scant fresh snow
Covered ground up, freezing thaws,
In between, thoughts, I mean.

We headed home, six hours southeast,
Wended St. Mary road, marveling
At white whiteness, some icy patches
And snow-plowed banks, past Mary
And Morman Lake. Rising in celebration,
Ponderosa-pines-and-no-shoulder-roads
Of past passed constructions. Scary to
A semi-desert dweller. Yet, to the
Mid-west-childhood adult, aching.
Because, I can feel everything I see.
Pine boughs, draped with heavy snow,
Is one of my favorite memories!

Heading south, it was the same,
But more. De-elavating, so to
Speak. There are no baby snowflakes,
Just, beginnings of polyps. There
Are no snowflakes, peek-a-boo!
There’s gravity, height, weight,
Angle, precision, friction, talon-
Visions of so around-round, under
Trees are sadder, deeper in trouble,
Sighted by vision. But, plopping down,
Sometimes, shakes out other branches,
Other dances, everything in motion.

Okay, no-road-shoulder, again, snow’s
Heft and lift keep changing, every mile
Safely driven. How wonderfully harrowing!
Even as the physics change, every
Moment. A few very lucky trees overhung
The road, having fun, plopping snow
In huge watery droplets of half frozen slush
On the cars traveling below, it was so cool!
Splats on the windshield. So figurative, so real.
Eventually we left the ‘snow-plop-forest’
Behind, along with a states elevated mountain
Ranges. But not before I studied its momentum.

Staring into the trees rushing by, from my
Back right seat, plops of snow were constantly
Falling! I laughed with delight, and memories.
Plops are not flakes, or drops, or flurries,
They are relatives, dropping in on us!
Um, us being ‘snow’. It’s a sort of
Hypnotism, you know, observing. So,
Plip, plip plop I started seeing off so many
Heightening trees, and their smaller ecosystems.
Snow stuck to bark, needle, cliff and kind.
And through the air between sifted snow dust.
Ha, wait! It gets better, momentarily…

You know how you look at fresh snow,
Loving its covering beauty of sight-blinding?
How you ‘feel’ what’s underneath, as the
Parents of a planet, repeated? Stop it! There I
Go, again! Diversing. Needless to say,
Along those miles, a second or two of sunshine,
Breeze or fate kept dropping forests containment. It
Was semi-miraculous how every tree-plopped,
Different-sized, each hung in the air for a moment,
Snow plops plopped into snow, snow into snow,
Was recorded, soft, yet heavy, then it was gone.
We arrived in warmer climes, melted away.

Erin Elizabeth Kelly-Moen
© Copyright 2/28/10