Onion Snow

On campus, we have

retained a few stately

trees, buds just forming

forty feet above the

stone gray concrete

path I use to make my

way to class.  I leave

my prints upon the

leavings of the last

snow of the season-

an onion snow we

called it once, the slow

and graceful, down-

fall of large and downy

flakes, that always

coats the walkways, as if

the winter had thrown

in a towel so large it

 hugs the whole near

world—the path, the

trees and the children’s

hair, as they march

doggedly wherever.

My prints will melt

with the snow before

the sun sets tonight.

The children will

vanish with the season.

And I, snowy hair

suddenly in fashion, old

coat buttoned to hide

my naked neck from frost,

hearing gone, sight slight,

feel as if I have walked

these old gray paths

forever, and will forever

still.  That tree and I,

silly in our coats of snow,

are old friends by now

and by the grace of god-

knows-what, we both

have been retained,

to welcome yet

the greening of

another spring.