In the Key of Snow

In Central Park, you lost our keys,
you dropped them in a drift of snow.
The plows

had not yet cleared the road.
Our boots dipped deep with every step,
hip-

high sometimes, kneecap high
and in the snow you lost our keys.
A haze

suffused the tops of trees,
a shush of sleds was on the air.
A pair

of cardinals did not cheep.
Quiet city, muffled, furred.
No one heard

the house keys fall. No one
heard them clink or ring.
How long

it's been since last it snowed,
how long since we were that transfixed,
so lax

that we let go of keys,
lost them in capacious snow!
Awe

is a deep, distracting thing.
We even took a mazy turn,
down

a path that seemed so strange,
it was made over by the snow.
How

long until it snows again
and snow mist caps the winter trees
and we lose

ourselves, or keys?

Copyright © 2003 Kate Bernadette Benedict All rights reserved
from Here From Away
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Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission