Unbidden, it comes all the same
Without malice, unaware and uninterested
In our dreams or desires

Without even innocence
Its promise of sweet seclusion
Sequestered beneath the pale sameness

Dissolving in the salty mired streets
White and gray in a death spiral
A love embrace unlike any

Seen since the last snowfall
What may be, what could be
Belong to the feckless air

Oh, I can dream, all right
But only until recalled
By bickering gulls

Geese barking orders,
Or the shrill outrage of the
Woodpecker’s call

A field mouse trips nervously
Across an ice dam
Vultures patrol the freeway

Food from top to bottom
Interested only in replication
The slaughter of millions

But a byproduct of procreation
So long as enough survive to breed
Or not, and even then,

Some beast waits anxiously in the wings
For just enough change
Just enough opportunity

And still, falls the snow.