Snow Angels
Opening the door to a newly white world
we fell for angels before snowballs or snowmen.
We’d lay on our backs happily
deaf to everything but our own breath,
blinded not by darkness but by light,
eyelids bright orange, hard-pressed
to keep the sun from burning black pupils
smaller than periods or dots over i’s.
Until a cloud drifts overhead,
felt not seen.
The excitement of jack jumping snow
fades with the light,
replaced by a melancholy
so familiar it feels like peace.
No need to keep eyes shut,
no desire to open them,
the heart slows to match the stillness.
Flightless wings like warm sheets
argue for sleep.
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Susan Keiser is an interdisciplinary artist who lives in a restored Gothic Victorian in Beacon, New York. Her photographs have been exhibited widely in solo and group shows, and she has a poem forthcoming in The Comstock Review. You can find her online at www.susankeiserphotography.com.
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Stone Poetry Quarterly 