Page Title

atalantacreative

Snow

I have been dreaming of snow.
As symbols go, it is rare, given
My love of the tropics and naked ness
But Alps have risen in my sleep and palms have been replaced
By jagged peaks more than once, lately.

Professor M bequeathed to me his office
On a floor that could not exist
And as tenured academes spoke low
In tones of bureaucratic intimacy,
A woman took me by the wrist
And said, “Let’s go.”

A Merlin he must have been,
His robes of tie dye silk fluttering
from coat racks and all the tables,
utilitarian oak, shelves of leather-spined
books. Windows ten feet tall opened
to the mountains, a scholar’s cathedral—psalmic
formulations on the blackboard. Tracks of skiers etched
the distant trails.

I shushed down hills in one dream
Without skis, “s” ing, whispers of descent
And gravity held me steady, streams
Of breath issued from my mouth in the cold.

And in another, onlookers said it could not be done,
But I, for one, dissented, knowing
That if I leapt and grabbed the edge
With my fingers, I could reach the top.

I did.

Once,
I sat in steaming water,
Nearly naked, below the sandstone hills,
My palms pink and it was like a dream.
Caught between seasons, my hair white,
I opened my mouth to taste the snow.

Neli Moody