Waiting for Snow

So let it snow. The last worst autumn task
is done, half in a shower that threatened sleet,
and if it snows now I’ve no more to ask.
The snow can come, and stay, and make complete
the dead-white weight of winter. Working’s done.
Most of the old wood’s cleared and stacked away.
The sagging chairs are stripped of summer’s sun.
The rotting leaves are piled for more decay.
The coming snow will hide unfinished work  -
those imperfections sacrificed to time
and every lazy lie for why we shirk
the dirty jobs. It’s too late, now, to climb
the tangled oak and cut the ivy out,
to dig the spreading nettles from the hedge,
or grub up brambles. Soon the slick of doubt
will thicken into yellow cloud and edge
across the sky. The waiting earth lies drained
and grave and passive; the last birds are dumb.
Grey light dissolves, to leave the stark unstained
and single certainty: the snow will come.

 
D. A. Prince