"All that mankind has done, thought, gained or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books."
-Thomas Carlyle

by Paul Lytle

On Christmas Eve is snowed, and hard, at least
compared to other snows in South Texas —
ten years ago, and then another twenty.
But snow it did, six inches in places,
and Christmas Day did come ivory, for once.
The week after it was seventy again,
and that is normal for our Januarys,
but on that day I ran around as mad,
snapping pictures of the melting fields,
knowing they might not look like that again
in my lifetime, and much longer still.

A month has gone by, and once more it froze,
but it is seventy again, and climbing.
The pictures that I took seem hot — seem brown.
Browner than I remember the day to be.
Maybe memory’s quest to polarize
our lives have already touched that Christmas Day.
Maybe I saw it as it truly was —
with all the emotion and thrill and naïveté.
The camera saw nothing of what I saw.

I wore no jacket today, no scarf or gloves,
and only sleeves and tie because of work.
It’s as it is again, but for a moment
the world caught my breath in fog and mist;
I wonder at how common are its rarities.