P. K. Page(b. 1916)
Stories of Snow
T h o s e in the vegetable rain retain
an area behind their sprouting eyes
held soft and rounded with the dream of s n o w
precious and reminiscent as those globes—
souvenir of some never-nether land—
w h i c h hold their snow-storms circular, complete,
high in a tall and teakwood cabinet.
In countries where the leaves are large as hands
where flowers protrude their fleshy chins
and call their colors,
an imaginary snow-storm sometimes falls
a m o n g the lilies.
And in the early morning one will waken
to think the glowing linen of his pillow
a northern drift, will find himself mistaken
and lie back weeping.
4. "Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and (sanctified bread or wafer) is carried in the Roman
the life (John 11.25).Catholic service known as the Mass.
And there the story shifts from head to head,
of how in Holland, from their feather beds
hunters arise and part the flakes and go
forth to the frozen lakes in search of swans—
the snow-light falling white along their guns,
their breath in plumes.
While tethered in the wind like sleeping gulls
ice-boats wait the raising of their wings
to skim the electric ice at such a speed
they leap jet strips of naked water,
and how these flying, sailing hunters feel
air in their mouths as terrible as ether.
And on the story runs that even drinks
in that white landscape dare to be no color;
how flasked and water clear, the liquor slips
silver against the hunters' moving hips.
And of the swan in death these dreamers tell
of its last flight and how it falls, a plummet,
pierced by the freezing bullet
and how three feathers, loosened by the shot,
descend like snow upon it.
While hunters plunge their fingers in its down
deep as a drift, and dive their hands
up to the neck of the wrist
in that warm metamorphosis of snow
as gentle as the sort that woodsmen know
who, lost in the white circle, fall at last
and dream their way to death.
And stories of this kind are often told
in countries where great flowers bar the roads
with reds and blues which seal the route to snow—
as if, in telling, raconteurs unlock
the color with its complement and go
through to the area behind the eyes
where silent, unrefractive whiteness lies.