North to South

Stormy out there: high winds, thunder, dark clouds rushing north to south. The London plane tree outside the window thrashes its leaves away. The furnace inside hisses and knocks. And believe it or not, it's snowing in Mount Pocono, sixty miles west. It's probably too early in the season to be thinking winter here, but I have our friend Marie Howe's "The Snow Storm" on my mind. It's from her brilliant collection The Kingdom of Ordinary Time, one of my favorite books, ever.

(Above, moody sky at 7:00 AM outside the kitchen window. And, below, Marie and her daughter, Inan, from 2004, when we spent Christmas Day together. Also, Inan and two writer guys.)

Note: html is doing violence to line breaks here. I will try to fix.

THE SNOW STORM
Marie Howe

I walked down towards the river, and the deer had left tracks
deep as half my arm, that ended in a perfect hoof
and the shump shump sound my boots made walking made the silence loud.

And when I turned back towards the great house
I walked beside the deer tracks again.
And when I came near the feeder: little tracks of the birds on the
surface of the snow I'd broken through.

Put your finger here and see my hands, then bring your hand and put it in my side.

I put my hand down into the deer track
and touched the bottom of an invisible hoof.
Then my finger in the little mark of the jay.