Snow

Chad Sweeney 

I looked for it between bowling pins
and along sills of the mayor's house
and in the medians of highways
where wind from truck tires
set the crocuses turning
on their axes.

I searched all the Thursdays of summer 

and through most of the fall
until I found it
coiled like a shawl
around the boots of a statue. 

I stared in wonder at snow.
I photographed it.

I memorized the way it gathered light
then gave it back
to the air.

I closed my eyes to consider it
against the faces I have loved.

Chad Sweeney is the author of five books of poetry and two books of translation, including White Martini of the Apocalypse (Marick Press); Parable of Hide and Seek (Alice James Books), and Wolf’s Milk: Lost Notebooks of Juan Sweeney (Forklift Books, bilingual English/Spanish). His poems have appeared widely, including in Best American Poetry, The Pushcart Prize Anthology, American Poetry Review, and The Writers Almanac. His translation of the Selected Poems of contemporary Iranian poet H.E. Sayeh appeared in 2011 from White Pine Press, and his translation of Pablo Neruda’s final book The Call to Destroy Nixon is forthcoming from Marick Press. While working with at-risk youth in San Francisco, he edited the City Lights anthology Days I Moved Through Ordinary Sounds. He teaches poetry in the MFA program at California State University San Bernardino where he edits Ghost Town Literary Journal. He holds a PhD from Western Michigan University and an MFA from San Francisco State, and lives in Southern California with the poet Jennifer K. Sweeney.