April 10: Winter Storm, Billy Collins, "Neither Snow"

It snowed today.  A lot.  It took me an hour to shovel my driveway this morning.  It took me close to an hour to get to work (a usual 20-minute drive).  A bus was jackknifed on the highway.  When I got home at 5:30 this evening, it took me another hour to move the snow that the plows had thrown into my front yard.  Then, I went to a friend's house and shoveled her out.  Another 40 minutes.

I'm pooped.  The snow was heavy as wet sand.  It felt like I was Sisyphus, and the friggin' boulder weighed a ton.  I was planning on cleaning my bathroom tonight.  However, I am going to postpone that little task.  When I get home, I'm going to put on my pajamas, make some hot chocolate spiked with Kahlua, and curl up on the couch, with PBS playing on the TV.

Saint Marty is going to be very sore tomorrow.

Neither Snow

by:  Billy Collins

When all of a sudden the city air filled with snow,
the distinguishable flakes
blowing sideways,
looked like krill
fleeing the maw of an advancing whale.

At least they looked that way to me
from the taxi window,
and since I happened to be sitting
that fading Sunday afternoon
in the very center of the universe,
who was in a better position
to say what looked like what,
which thing resembled some other?

Yes, it was a run of white plankton
borne down the Avenue of the Americas
in the stream of the wind,
phosphorescent against the weighty buildings.

Which made the taxi itself,
yellow and slow-moving,
a kind of undersea creature,
I thought as I wiped the fog from the glass,

and me one of its protruding eyes,
an eye on a stem
swiveling this way and that
monitoring one side of its world,
observing tons of water
tons of people
colored signs and lights
and now a wildly blowing race of snow.

Just keep shoveling...