Christmas Eve Storm in Zion Canyon, 2016

Strings of cars wound through the wet snow,
Holidayers, mostly staying at the Lodge no doubt.
The world hummed two contrasting parts,
Come in, come in, get out, get out.

It was not forecast to start this fast.
There'd been a chance it wouldn't fall at all.
This was a desert and a desert in drought.
The world hummed two contrasting parts,
Come in, come in, get out, get out.

As snows go, it wasn't nothing, but by midday, still,
It was nothing much. Sedans and tour busses slowed
But stayed on the roads, although the rocks began
Here and there to let go and slide into the route.
The world hummed two contrasting parts,
Come in, come in, get out, get out.

The river was a slick, brown snake squirming
Through the closing banks as if the earth had winter hands
And was trying to grab it and keep it still. Not a chance.
Water, more water, was all the grip the weather could commit,
And water, like any garden truth, snakes or not, will always out.
The world hummed two contrasting parts,
Come in, come in, get out, get out.

Body sat among filigreed cottonwoods, letting
The cold wet the head. Silver, black, chocolate trees
At that early stage of a soft, warmish winter storm,
Every least twig detailed in clinging white, but not
Bent from weight or ice quite, arched overhead. Snow
Covered the soles, then the ankles, but the hikers wandered out.
The world hummed two contrasting parts,
Come in, come in, get out, get out.

It would get colder as it quit. The forecast promised
A Christmas of ice. The stores would close. The lids
Of the cloudy, sleepy sky would open on black
And stars, hard and sharp. I watched the steady, soothing pattern
Of that wool, that quasicrystalline, aperiodic, knowledgeable swirl.
I wanted it, wanted this calm accumulation to extend forever.
But calm accumulating forever was not what my storm was about.
The world hummed two contrasting parts,
Come in, come in, get out, get out.