Dust of Snow
I thought I was done
mourning war
learning to savor
a faceful of snow
from the shaken pine
without remembering
the water dripped
on my father’s head
his torture into a coma
surviving four years
in Japanese prison
to become my father
in the same war Stefan
escaped on skis
from Poland
across the Tatras into Lithuania
and then Russia
and became my husband
now long since gone
this dawn after snow
as the new war invades my mind
and sun lights a thin white line
rising from the chimney
of a peaceable slate gray house
where I live with my wife
on a wooded hill
but see the smoke
of bombed buildings
barely noticing how snow
dusts from the arms of a pine
drifts like a beautiful ghost
or an angel I wish
I could send to Ukraine.
*
Laura Foley is the author of eight poetry collections. Everything We Need: Poems from El Camino was released, in winter 2022. Her poems have appeared in Alaska Quarterly Review, Valparaiso Poetry Review, One Art Poetry, Poetry Society London, Crannog Magazine (Ireland), DMQ Review, Atlanta Review, Mason Street, JAMA, and many others. Her work has been included in many anthologies such as: Poetry of Presence: An Anthology of Mindfulness Poems, Healing the Divide: Poems of Kindness and Connection, and How to Love the World: Poems of Gratitude and Hope. Laura lives with her wife, Clara Gimenez, among the hills of Vermont. www.laurafoley.net
