“In March” by Laura Newbern
The Russian army advances. Red arrows everywhere. The snow flies.
What century is it? Here, daffodils bloom. There, the snow flies.
In summer I sat at the table and stared at the feeder covered with birds.
I do think that time is an ocean and that always, somewhere, the snow flies.
At the reading you whispered into my ear Too many words; I wanted to die
with laughter. I held very still. So did you. Oh but we were bare. The snow flies.
What is it to love forever: a friend, a lover, a mother, a teacher who took
to you? Who looked in your eyes and said something like I am despair. The snow flies.
In spring we stepped into the Orthodox church shining with sprays and eggs.
The sprays were of willow. We in our black coats—two prayers. The snow flies.
Flowers all over my friend’s mother’s grave: roses, yellow carnations.
An old woman’s voice filled the cathedral in Boston, wavering, as the snow flies.
In the fairy tale the snow flies; in the tattered novel; onstage at the Met, in
La Bohème. Mimi turns blue and dies and nobody cares. The snow flies.
The grandfather clock was carefully packed up and moved, four hours south.
In its panel, a circular painting—geese against sky. I stare, and snow flies.
Remember when we were children, capturing flags, carving kingdoms into
the root-lands of trees? The world was dirty and new. Time, a bright air. The snow flies.
Laura Newbern is the author of the poetry collection Love and the Eye and the recipient of a Writer’s Award from the Rona Jaffe Foundation. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, The Threepenny Review, The Southern Review, and Poetry, among other venues. Her second collection, A Night in the Country, was chosen by Louise Glück as a winner of the Changes Book Prize. She lives in Georgia and is at work on a new manuscript, “The Book of Figures.”