Snow

by Holly Day

Aditya Vyas

The first snowfall is felt as well as heard, the tiny patter of bits of ice tapping against the bare tin sheet that makes up the roof of the back porch the sound of its weight as the first volley lands in a blanket on the deck out back. This first snowfall is always “snow,” there’s no need to call it anything else whether it’s welcome or reviled. As the months go on

it becomes harder to explain the weather to one not completely immersed in it that “snow” doesn’t mean the same thing depending on the temperature that there are different consistencies to fresh snow, like the soft, sticky snow that comes in March, perfect for snowball fights and snow angels or the blinding clouds of tiny, hard pellets, blown sideways by the wind the air so cold it hurts to breathe. These two things are called snow but they are not the same. They are as different as mist and rainfall, morning dew and a tropical storm. And what should we call this? I ask my daughter

as we stand at the bus stop on a frigid January morning, the dog huddled at my feet ready to go inside already. The air around us glints with tiny bits of glitter that melt before they even reach your skin, crystalline motes that hover in the air, catching the sun. But this, too, is snow, somehow. There’s no other word to explain what else it could be.

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Holly Day’s poetry has recently appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, Grain, and The Tampa Review. Her newest poetry collections are In This Place, She Is Her Own (Vegetarian Alcoholic Press), A Wall to Protect Your Eyes (Pski’s Porch Publishing), Folios of Dried Flowers and Pressed Birds (Cyberwit.net), Where We Went Wrong (Clare Songbirds Publishing), Into the Cracks (Golden Antelope Press), and Cross Referencing a Book of Summer (Silver Bow Publishing).