Another Year

I don't know how much more snow I can take,
it falls & I sip tea, watching the pines
grow heavy white. It's a new beginning
every day, clean slate for the wayward world.

But then the noisy plows scrape it aside,
the buses run on time, nothing is closed.
The snow is not magic. It's just weather.

Three hundred years ago (or even more)
what did they hope from spring? That their bare barns
would have enough rye seed to sow a crop?
Could they imagine the languid south, the trees
as heavy with fruit as the pines were with snow?

If they could not, what sweet mercy spared them.
Just knowing beaches bake beneath the sun
is burden enough for me. What softness!
with my cupboards full, my rooms well heated,
& only my soul unable to bear
day after day (months) of new beginnings.