The Snow Angels

MARTIN, Stevie, and Joe and I,
Four in our family long ago,
One winter day on the road to school,
Boot-top high through a field of snow,
Stopped by the old black walnut tree;
And Joe and Martin and I, all three,
Lay on our backs in a laughing row,
Our white forms printed: the tall one Joe,
Mart beside him, the fat one me.
Then we called to Stevie, ‘Look yonder, see,
Angels resting beneath the tree!’

But Steve had paused by the open spring,
Down on his knees in the yellow mud,
Watching his face in the troubled pool
Where the snow birds drank and the cattle trod —
‘Look, Steve, angels!’ But he just stepped
His muddy tracks where the angels slept.

Martin, Stevie, and Joe and I,
Four in our family, long ago,
Then three white winds past the walnut tree —
Joe and Martin and I, all three.
For pollen scatters; the leaf must blow;
The winged seed follow the squall of snow —
The winged seed follow, the field lie clear.
(Mart in China, a card last year —
Joe in Houston, a yacht and plane —
And here by the mirror I lift my hands,
Binding my throat with a velvet chain —
The skin of my throat and the sharpening bone.)

Wind past the tree and the snow-whirls blown —
In the hands of our angels the wheat seed sown;
Over their bodies the wheat stalks mown.

But Stevie’s tracks from the meadow spring
Still break the stubble and print the clay,
And his steps zigzag with the cradle’s swing
So near that place where the angels lay.

One earth-born shape with his shoulders low —
Four in our family, long ago.