supermarkets too, throng with over-prudent seekers
preparing for disaster yet again,
secret hoping that perhaps this time
they will actually get to use those candles,
cans of Campbells, and the pack
of extra batteries.
Home, I lower blinds against the dark,
sensing a gathering in the air,
a suspended, swaddling silence
pregnant with a multitude shimmering flakes,
ready, despite the accumulated evidence
of seventy-four past winters,
to be surprised once more –
surprised almost to kneeling in the gentle stuff –
at what this ordinary, too familiar world
can do with falling water.
J. Barrie Shepherd
