The Sound of Snow

Growing deaf, one thing that I really miss
is the sound of falling snow. When I
and Bob-the-cat lived at the very top
of Oak Trail, in a treetop apartment,

it snowed a lot for Alabama.
Bob would hear it and run to the kitchen
where glass doors looked out on a balcony,
and I would hear it and follow the cat.

Together we'd watch through the ice-cold glass,
as someone up yonder seemed to be shaking
a feather-bed with a big hole in it;
and Bob would bump his nose and paws

on the glass; he couldn't figure out why
he never could catch what he saw so clear.
You could hear it best when it started to fall:
Ice crystals blown against the house

rattled or sighed with gusts of wind,
and grew bigger and softer, the longer they fell.
In a while, the world would be full of feathers,
and the air full of whispers. Bob would get bored,

and wander away hunting a warm place
to curl up. I, on the other hand,
I wouldn't leave that lookout point
if it snowed all night (which it never did).

Those were what I call the good old days.
But now, when it snows, if it ever snows,
I learn of it when I pass a bare window,
and sight is the only sense awakened.

By JRC, 6/24/11