The Local Yarn

Colloquy in Water

            “It’s snowing again.”
        “Don’t mention it.”
    “Why not?”
“I think it’s very pretty.”
            “It’s cold.”
        “You want it hot?”
    “I merely want it to be peaceful.
I’d like the sky to rest
In its convexity
Awhile.”
            “I never guessed
        The snow was anything
    But snow.”
“Who says it is?”
            “I do. Look at it
        Gently fall. Can this
    Be any signature
But peace?”
            “A handless, six-
        sided, shaken sign
    The globe turns. It sticks
Me in the eye.”
            “Your sight
        Is snow-blinded. Observe
    The snow piled whitely there
On the cottage.”
            “The curve
        Of watery weather
    In the smooth-lined sky
Distorts your looking — bends
Your wish into your eye.”
            “The snow is soft as powder.”
        “It grains my ear.”
    “It falls
Again.”
“No, it leaps up
To the tilting glass walls.”
by Richard Lyons. Published in the North Dakota Quarterly, Vol 30 Issue 4 (1962).