Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

First Snow

First Snow The snow clouds make a negative of winter trees, except for the wind's slight shaking and the twirl of leaves, brown and crinkled on a distant branch. She watches the hawk's low spiral and knows that juncos have fluffed breast feathers against the cold. Some mornings sorrow is kept at bay by detail. Yesterday's sun shown bright, and she sat on the porch to warm her face. A large doe stormed the yard, stopped to look at her, then sprinted the drive to the road. Last night she dreamed it again before a noise startled her from sleep. She checked the door and heated milk to drink. "Move in with us," her daughter kept saying, "I wouldn't live alone so far from town in that creaking house." "You were born in this creaking house," She thought to say, but didn't. She's lost the need to explain. Some nights regret sets the diner table and windows reflect blush when old dreams wake a fever. places she hasn't seen, her husband's grave, the child that died at birth, the girlish She's gained a faith that has little to do with town preaching, or her daughter's misled concerns. A coyote raised a brood below the barn last spring, and she kept it secret. Pups tumbled in the grass to draw their mother in a fray. As snow begins to fall, she prepares a cage of suet for mockingbirds. Tired bones and sleepless nights come with the package. A person learns to love a place or hate it. -- Bill Brown http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Appalachian Review University of North Carolina Press

First Snow

Appalachian Review , Volume 32 (4) – Jan 8, 2004

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/first-snow-HCnORt3ZKi

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © Berea College.
ISSN
1940-5081
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The snow clouds make a negative of winter trees, except for the wind's slight shaking and the twirl of leaves, brown and crinkled on a distant branch. She watches the hawk's low spiral and knows that juncos have fluffed breast feathers against the cold. Some mornings sorrow is kept at bay by detail. Yesterday's sun shown bright, and she sat on the porch to warm her face. A large doe stormed the yard, stopped to look at her, then sprinted the drive to the road. Last night she dreamed it again before a noise startled her from sleep. She checked the door and heated milk to drink. "Move in with us," her daughter kept saying, "I wouldn't live alone so far from town in that creaking house." "You were born in this creaking house," She thought to say, but didn't. She's lost the need to explain. Some nights regret sets the diner table and windows reflect blush when old dreams wake a fever. places she hasn't seen, her husband's grave, the child that died at birth, the girlish She's gained a faith that has little to do with town preaching, or her daughter's misled concerns. A coyote raised a brood below the barn last spring, and she kept it secret. Pups tumbled in the grass to draw their mother in a fray. As snow begins to fall, she prepares a cage of suet for mockingbirds. Tired bones and sleepless nights come with the package. A person learns to love a place or hate it. -- Bill Brown

Journal

Appalachian ReviewUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Jan 8, 2004

There are no references for this article.