cambridge book review

Snow Melt

Elli Hazit

This was my story
I didn’t mean for it
to get away from me
To get out of hand

I watched alone
as the snow melted
to become pitiful heaps of dirty ice
Retreating before the sun
As we turned back closer to its heat
I told myself to hold on
until Spring and then, when it finally arrived,
I couldn’t believe my eyes

One Sunday in March
I stayed in my room all day
waiting for the last piles of snow to vanish
Peeking from behind the blinds
from time to time to check
as they shriveled to nothing
Superstitious
When they vanished I’d be able
to move
to move on

They’ll be no more pieces to pick up
or push from the path
After carrying its weight all this long winter
I will be able to feel the thaw
Inside me, inside the ground

I’ve become
sick and tired of leafless trees
straw colored grass
Though I will contrive
this final symbol from the snow
Remnants that I notice

Whatever the pain is like
the pain we say we quick forget
What the pale pink faded scar cannot recount
is remembered
making faith less hardy
stirring, still, an uneasy bile

These new leaves are suspect, too
I can’t trust them to endure
Their frothy blinding green and lush demeanor
might not last
Might not survive
the winter

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Elli Hazit was born in San Francisco in 1960. She earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and her master’s degree from Boston University. Hazit lived in Paris, France from 1983 to 1997. Her writing has been published in the International Herald Tribune, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and the Cambridge News. She has also produced radio programs for WORT-FM, Madison. One of her stories, “The Tangerines and the Dogs,” was broadcast internationally on the BBC World Service Programme.

June 15, 2011 Posted by | poetry | , , | 1 Comment