A POEM ABOUT SNOW

This one arrived in my email yesterday from poets.org.  
 I couldn't resist it:  such wonderful descriptions of what we adults fight and argue about = snow!

This is just an excerpt of the whole poem.  
Do you remember sledding down the hills when you were a child?  
Do you remember bouncing up and down like Tigger the Tiger, 
unable to wait to be put in your snowsuit, your boots, your scarf - 
then outside with a wild whoosh (and the scarf and hat came off, 
to be stuffed in your pocket), out you went! 
On to a cold, snowy adventure!

Snow

by Naomi Shihab Nye

Once with my scarf knotted over my mouth
I lumbered into a storm of snow up the long hill
and did not know where I was going except to the top of it.
In those days we went out like that.
Even children went out like that.
Someone was crying hard at home again, 
raging blizzard of sobs.

I dragged the sled by its rope, 
which we normally did not do
when snow was coming down so hard,
pulling my brother whom I called by our secret name
as if we could be other people under the skin.
The snow bit into my face, prickling the rim
of the head where the hair starts coming out.
And it was a big one. It would come down and down
for days. People would dig their cars out like potatoes.

How are you doing back there? I shouted,
and he said Fine, I’m doing fine, 
in the sunniest voice he could muster 
and I think I should love him more today
for having used it.