Elegy in Spring Snow

Abstract

Elegy in Spring Snow Donald Platt (bio) April 8th, a freak snow five days after Easter, and the daffodils, which had opened their mouths and shouted yellow yellow against the sodden mass of brown and purplish dead leaves in our backyard, are now six inches under. The white melting shroud flashes a whiplash of lightning in the sun and makes my eyes wince shut and squint. Everyone leaves shining footprints that by tomorrow will turn to muddy water gargling down the storm drain. I can't stop thinking of the way the curly-haired check-out boy at Evergood Grocery shook each paper bag open with a quick, insouciant flick of the wrist, made the creased paper crack like a slap shot off the rink's boards, and then packed the bag full, canned goods and milk at the bottom, eggs and big heads of frilly escarole on top. Today I heard the cashier tell how last night [End Page 139] the boy's souped-up Camaro had skidded on a slick S curve as he came into work in the falling snow. He hit a concrete pylon head-on. His neck broke. I'm thinking of the blond daffodils packed tight in snow's excelsior, some with their green stems snapped, others that will survive the storm. Who decides what lives or dies? What is this gift we get, snow that blossoms and loads the bare pear trees, then bends their branches to the ground? They don't spring back. Tomorrow we set our clocks forward, lose an hour. It won't matter to the boy who has forgotten daylight and how to save it. Donald Platt Donald Platt’s second book, Cloud Atlas, was published by Purdue University Press as the winner of the Verna Emery Poetry Prize. His work appears in the Georgia Review, Kenyon Review, and the Virginia Quarterly Review, among others. Copyright © 2005 the University of Nebraska Press