All day long it has snowed and rained and snowed.
I kept a fire going in a stone hut
under the green apron of an old pine
that has seen so much more than this.
When it snowed the mud of the road whitened,
and I sensed how something near death
grows toward an ancient silence, how like a newborn
it begins to shine with the loss of markings.
The snow worked hard to cover wheel and animal tracks,
to make the road and the hills look as if no one
had ever passed here. They were getting ready for you,
like a page waiting for music.
Then the snow fell to rain, pulling the long grass down,
rubbing the white road until mud showed through
in letter shapes like brands on the hinds of cattle.
Only twice I heard a truck pass. The road changed again.
I watched two field mice lug the hard bread I tossed
from lunch into their cache under the porch.
I want you to know these small things add up
to something that won't take a name. They matter
even while the world burns human fires.
I cannot tell you why I love the snow,
why I want it to keep falling all day and night
for the next two months and fill the world
before you slip into it. I hear the rain drip from the roof,
the light snow falling, and you rounding my belly
as if you understood the moon. This is the seventh month.
Your ears, barely the size of coat buttons, hear me.
Your legs and arms have less drifting space.
Your eyes can tell the difference now between light and dark.
You dream. But I want you to know nothing.
Not even consciousness will prepare you for the light
and dark of my world. I have spoken to no one
but you all day: It is time to cross the white road,
wander into the opening eye and make the first markings.
I will wait a few more moments until it is fully dark.
The path will be a lavender sash of snowlight.
We will put our cheeks to the cheek
of whatever all this day has been listening.
LAURIE KUTCHINS is
the author of a previous collection of poems, Between Towns, winner of the Texas
Tech University Press's First Book Poetry Competition for 1991.
"Prelude" first appeared in The Southern
Review and is the opening poem of her latest book, The Night Path (BOA
Editions1997).
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