Monday, May 8, 2017

Winter in Upstate NewYork, 1977

She tunnels out of her house 
through a mantel of snow
six feet high,
carrying her young son
to the barn.  She breaks
up a bunch of hay bales,
nesting him in the middle,
close to the cows.
She buries her head 
in the flank of the cow 
while she milks, thankful 
for its warm body and breath.

She’s swinging the pick-ax hard
through the ice in a trough
’til she chops a hole big enough
for a bucket to fill with water.
Running back and forth 
to water the cows, pigs,
horses, chickens.  The water
is fast-freezing in the bucket.
The temperature is windchill -40 degrees
for ten days.

Back home, she stokes the wood stove.
They sit within its three feet
of warmth, in their hats and coats.
All that’s left to burn is wet pine
and she burns it. 
Every cell in her body is an ice pellet.

The snow keeps falling.
By morning, the door won’t open.
If this was Antarctica, 
she would be better prepared,
mindful and in sync with her purpose.
Here, it’s all muscle-memory:  Survival.
Keep herself, her son, and the animals
from freezing to death.


There is a treacherous beauty
in the landscape, a silence
that only deep snow on farmland
seems capable of.
This span of time, of snow, wind and cold,
will just be another conversation with friends
in a few months.  But she
will remember it for years
and years as the time she overcame 
disbelief in herself.


© Evie Safran, 2017

"Old farm at Overtown in deep snow"
by Richard Johnson
from the Geography Project collection
from Wikimedia Commons

1 comment:

jean said...

Awesome poem! I felt that cold!