The real trouble with snow
isn't the shoveling,
or the cold,
or even the grungy slop of roads.
It's that there's just too many adjectives in it
and not nearly enough nothing to behold.
When I see it boldly
clung to boughs,
it makes me think:
Oh, white!
Oh, wow!
Oh, soft! And oh, majestic! And oh,
how ecumenically bestowed!
But all these words were used before,
the currency of countless packs
of hokey Roberts Frost,
and each betrays the untrue gap
between what winter's really worth
and what it seems to cost.
I've read that
what I see is it;
the snow just signifies itself,
and I shouldn't take in any words
than I can't quickly spit.
But somehow I can't nip the feeling
that snow's cold beauty betrays meaning,
and I just can't stop salivating
to describe it all precipitating.
In a hurry, Frost called his woods "lovely,"
and then just "dark," and then just "deep."
Well, so are mine, apparently;
only I've got nowhere else to be.
