North Country Snow

Winter makes a statement here,
impossible to drown out or ignore.
Metaphors cling like snow to sidewalks,
analogies thick as icicles hang from the eaves.
Blizzards rush in, so thick and sudden
your only job is to get home and stay there.
Then there are storms like this one:
Flakes so tiny
it looks like no snow at all.
Only when you are deep in the middle
do you realize and name it.
Feel how sharp those tiny bits of ice,
see how they build up around your house, your heart
without you seeing them, without recognizing and
naming the danger—
Till divorce or springtime are
the only things immense enough
to guide you through the storm.