It's a typical spring day in New England....

 and we got six inches of snow dropped on us today. Hence, Linda Gregerson:

 Spring Snow

By Linda Gregerson
 

A kind of counter-

blossoming, diversionary,  

doomed, and like

the needle with its drop

of blood a little

too transparently in

love with doom, takes

issue with the season: Not

(the serviceberry bright

with explanation) not

(the redbud unspooling

its silks) I know I've read

the book but not (the lilac,

the larch) quite yet, I still

have one more card to

play. Behold

a six-hour wonder: six

new inches bedecking the

railing, the bench, the top

of the circular table like

a risen cake. The saplings

made (who little thought

what beauty weighs) to bow

before their elders.

The moment bears more

than the usual signs of its own

demise, but isn't that

the bravery? Built

on nothing but the self-

same knots of air

and ice. Already

the lip of it riddled

with flaws, a sort

of vascular lesion that

betokens—what? betokens

the gathering return

to elementals. (She

was frightened

for a minute, who had

planned to be so calm.)

A dripline scoring

the edge of the walk.

The cotton batting blown

against the screen begun

to pill and molt. (Who

clothed them out of

mercy in the skins

of beasts.) And even

as the last of the

lightness continues

to fall, the seepage

underneath has gained

momentum. (So that

there must have been a

death before

the death we call the

first or what became

of them, the ones

whose skins were taken.)

Now the more-

of-casting-backward-than-of-

forward part, which must

have happened while I wasn't

looking or was looking

at the skinning knives. I think

I'll call this mercy too.

Source: Poetry (November 2006).

(Happy Spring! :P )