A Memory of Snow

It is snowing again
and every time it does
I am a child once more
watching snowflakes
drift past my window,
listening to the radio
for school closures,
wondering why grownups
always get so serious
when it comes to snow.
Wondering how each snowflake
is different
like the snowflakes
I folded and cut
from white paper at school
and taped to the windows
or hung from the branch
of a Christmas tree.

When I was six
I lived in Boston
on the second floor
of a brownstone
tucked into the tenement district
where women wore babushkas,
rag pickers still called out
for old clothes
and the bell of an ice cream cart
brought children running
on a summer day.
A lamplighter came at dusk
to light the gas street lamps
and my father rode home
from work on a trolley car.
Sometimes I would go
to meet him,
walking hand in hand back home
climbing the stairs to our flat
where I had my very own bedroom
with a window
overlooking the street

It was a winter of firsts for me,
first grade in a city school
first time for snow
higher than my head
and the first time for frost
on my windowpane,
a skim of crackled ice with
beautiful swirls and
bursts of crystalline stars.
“Momma, where did it
come from?” I asked.
“Jack Frost came
in the night and
painted your window,”
she answered with a smile.
It seemed like magic
and I stood for hours
by my window
waiting for Jack Frost
to come again
to paint my window with leaves
and flowers
and stars

I have pictures of myself at six
standing in drifts of snow
wearing my snowsuit
and a big smile
The photo is black and white
but I remember the mittens,
they were red, and attached
by a long strand of yarn
that went up my sleeves
and around my neck
so that I and my mittens
would not part company

Snow is innocent joy
It is lifting
my face to the sky
catching snowflakes
on my tongue
feeling them soft and wet
falling
caressing my cheek
until a snowball flies my way
POW!
splattering cold down my neck
Surprise…
the sound of laughter

It is snowing again
and with it come memories
of a six-year old child… and
the smell of wet woolen mittens
drying on a steam radiator
in a tenement flat
rubber galoshes on the floor
and chunks of melting snow
turning to puddles,
a cup of hot cocoa
with marshmallows
and a bowl of Campbell’s
tomato soup
Umm good!

I put on my jacket
knit cap and gloves
open the door
and rush outside
to catch snowflakes
on my tongue
once more.

... P. L. Morningsar