James Armstrong
First Snow
As you lie in bed,
you can tell it has snowed
by the radiance in the window—
light comes from the ground and not the sky
as if you suddenly lived on the moon.
In that moment, you are back to childhood
when any change of the exterior world
is a change of heart, when the light
tells you what to feel, when you need the sky
and its endless changes.
When that first snow fell,
each snowflake whispered
a secret so intimate
it took the rest of your life to un-believe.
Here it is again.
Your chance to repent.
James Armstrong, Poetry East, #102-103, Fall 2021.