Snowfall Times: a poem

It started snowing
the moment I switched
from my heat pump to my furnace
because it still sat below
freezing, and decided to brew
a fresh pot of coffee because
I had finished drinking
the pot from yesterday; it was
10:29 AM on January 18, 2023.
After some brief moments of a
further whitening of our already
bleak landscape, the clouds just as
suddenly stopped dropping the
crystallized precipitation.
It was as if Winter was taking
a break, sucking in a deep
breath for what was to come
next: a smothering of flakes
that, when I went to scoop
in the early hours the morning
after, I had to guess where my
next step on the staircase
would appear. I bundled up in
coveralls, boots, and hat so my
kitten no longer recognized me;
she startled at the white-powdered
monster that emerged from outdoors
to stand inside our home, feeling
trapped until the city finally
swept along my alley once with
the snow plow later that afternoon,
a clouded 2:09 PM.

1–19–23
Tansy Julie Soaring Eagle Paschold