I completely forgot to put this poem on my poetry blog. It’s a direct response to the Advent Calendar of Prompts, link below. On a wet and miserable, decidedly brown winter’s day, the memory of childhood snow cheers me up no end! I generally find that snow is so much better in the past and the future, than it is in the present…
Snow Angel
The memory never melts,
not even dozens of springs later.
My small, awkward body,
rosy cheeks protruding
through the tiny air hole of my hood,
my hot face squished into a soft mountain ridge,
every drawstring pulled to the tightest taut
and knotted with the ill executed expertise
of an impatient eight year old.
Arms and legs flailing on the ground,
pushing more and more ice crystals into gaps
between shoe and leg, mitt and hand,
chasms of boiling frost,
young skin raw with excitement.
I keep going until my breath
has chugged out a steam train
all the way to the moon.
It’ll never return.
I must stop before
I wriggle my body through earth’s core.
My snow angel, a legend that day,
every day,
buried deeper,
wings spread wider,
my friends in awe.
My heart, the fastest runner,
already home, telling mum.
She tries to free my shivering burnt limbs
from a coat zipped up to the gunnels,
every drawstring hopelessly tangled and tied.
Mum cuts me out with a smile.
‘You had fun’, she says.
I nod my head and the perfect crystal
falls onto the warm kitchen floor.
The memory never melts.
That snow angel, a legend that day,
every day.
Worth it.
Sharp and clear in my memory.
I could sketch it even now,
flake by flake.
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