The Snow

The snow outside is so beautiful
I wish I could write a poem describing it
So well that it would be there
later if I needed it.

The snow is bunched in ample tufts,
held in the fingers of the branches. The snow shoots
in streaks close to the window screen. Further away,
the snow dawdles down to the yard in clumps.

We are going under again.
There is no one in the room with me.
The bed is white and so is the wall.
I try to keep them that way but it is hard.

Oh, it is hard. The snow enacts its great migration,
the entire white country of the sky
landing softly on the brown and grey earth
like a blanket. The little white envelope of your

text appears on my screen. I've yet
to open it. I received a package:
My mom has sent me another harmonica
for my birthday. I am being gently held

hostage by the snow. I haven't left
the white desk beneath my white loft-bed
for a week. The snow looks harrowed as it falls
a tribe of mothers searching for lost children.

We were supposed to Skype later, but I don't
really want to. I have talked to no one
but the waiter all day. I like it that way.
Off in the distance, the city has been

partially erased by snow. I am trying to learn 
to be a simpler man, to say simple things in simple ways, 
to not invent complexity in the attempt to understand
things that cannot be understood.

Warned of others who were buried under their efforts
to figure it all out, I'm doing my best
to simplify, to let my mind be silent like
The mouths of the creatures closed by the snow.

I've been given a simple life
and I want to see it through.
Spring is rounding

the horizon. Little by little,
the snow will melt, and the world will once again
begin trying to explain itself.