John Schneider
THAW

Still burdened with winter’s whiteness
………….and the darkness of prolonged nights,

we gaze out at our world through glazed windows.
………….This is the time of year for

crusted glass, cold reflections.  Again, my aging eyes
………….look back at me, facing something disturbing,

wearing the same wrinkled image. It winces at me from
………….the frozen kitchen window, still closed to seeing:

………….a reminder of our fragility.

When the sky blushes with afternoon light, the sun’s
………….angle changes. Shadows shift.  Jagged icicles

suspended from eaves melt sharply, just to freeze again,
………….every day into and out of existence:

………….a lesson about holding onto.

◊

With the thaw, I discover a fleeing hare,
………….its tracks in all this whiteness painted

with warm drops of blood tenderly Pollacking
………….the canvas.  I close my eyes, lost in the scene.

………….My breath on the window leaves its brief prints.

◊

Like a nested bird before it takes flight,
………….one after another angel falls from the sky

as children sculpting their first wings in fresh snow.
………….Their arms whirlwind like clock hands.

Their bodies determined to float upon the surface,
………….something even warmer, safer than a mother ‘s arms,

………….than the gravity of the world.

With the distant howl of their young voices, in the dying
………….light of dusk, briefly there are no angels.

………….There is no death, no canvas, no burden.

John Schneider lives in Berkeley, California. His debut collection, Swallowing the Light, is forthcoming in 2022 from Kelsay Books. His work has been published in The Worcester Review, Tampa Review, The American Journal of Poetry, California Fire and Water: A Climate Crisis Anthology, and elsewhere. His poetry has been a Merit Award winner in the Atlanta Review 2021 International Poetry Competition. He is also a two-time Pushcart Prize nominee.

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