Providence and Common Sense

Gusts of wind topping forty miles an hour

send wisping streams of powdery snow

snaking across the frozen tufts of pasture,

across the bare planks of the deck,

across the winter-caked crusts of mud and gravel

that make up what we have left

of a driveway in January.

By afternoon, the wind chill will be well below zero.

In the dim dawning of such a storm,

small drifts form in the lee of tree trunks,

fence posts, clumps of grass,

and anything else offering a chance

for the slightest break from this lancing.

Down the hill below the house,

Randa’s palomino Foxtrotter,

coarse hair dinged by weeks of winter,

stands in the doorway of the shed,

hindquarters stuck inside toward the hay,

head lifted in the direction of the highway,

ears tilted back but not flattened.

He has learned in his eleven years

that it is good to have something

like a barn or at least a grove of trees

between you and winter’s worst days.

Even the sparrow knows

that some hours are better spent

scratching for seeds beneath the interwoven branches of the thicket

rather than hopping about in the marrow of the storm,

cursing the cold and pining for summer.

The God Who Gives Us Seasons

also gave us Reason.

Or at least has made the offer…

H. Arnett

1/15/21