First Snow, Best Snow

By Connolly Ryan

 

You remember the first time

it snowed on your world?

 

To your little body and giant eyes,

the snowflakes looked like

extraterrestrial Ferris-wheels

and gyroscopic carousels

spinning ever so slowly

and quickly at the same time.

 

And how, after hours of watching

snow fall, you ventured outdoors,

bundled in so many layers

you forgot you had a body at all.

 

And then, there it was: the neighborhood

transformed into an arctic prairie,

cars either gliding like snails in a dream

or stalled in the middle of the polar street,

being pushed by sudden model citizens

who only yesterday worshipped indifference

but were now intoxicated by their civic duty

to help their trapped neighbors along.

 

Parked cars were buried so deeply

they resembled hibernating beasts,

onto whose hoods and roofs we

weightlessly pounced, roaring

like beasts ourselves, before diving

into the powdery depths miles below,

disappearing into the shivering grace.

 

Do you remember the first time

it snowed on everything you knew?

 

The sky waving its vast wand until

familiarity morphed into fantasy:

the everyday effervesced

into a miracle of novelty

and every footstep you took

felt intimate and timeless

as you were still young enough

to see how seamless the space was

between what was magic and what was real.

 

Do you remember that feeling?

That feeling remembers you.