In gently blowing drifts today

the pink swirls down to softly frost these city streets

Piles up at curb lines, fills the gutters, carpets sidewalks —

many-tinted layers mount and mound,

rose-pink, candy, near red, almost white,

all blending thick and moistly yielding underfoot

Crushed fragrance almond sweet

(some things are sweeter crushed, and some are not)

More flutters down

past startled eyelashes, past parted lips

to pause perch rest on sleeves and scarves

These rosy flowered trees so extra full of bloom today

replace the sky

No trace of blue

when you look up

all curving swerving petals pink

Strange, hard to credit

that this soft snow fell from those high, hidden branches

so richly wildly densely blossom-covered

their rough wood darkness is denied, concealed

yet somehow, earlier, there was room (must have been)

for more? for more and more and more

You know today, and yet you don't

A week from now, or maybe less

all this,

all this pink,

all this sweet life,

like other snows

will melt away

will meld with earth

will be quite gone