Woo Woo Makes A Snow Angel Poem by James P. Roberts

Holding her heart tight,
alone in a cold, dark night
she wanted to write herself
into the clean white paper
of freshly fallen snow.

She tries to remember
the last time she had let go:
her daughter may have been
seven... or nine... or even twelve --
when her bones were supple

and her body felt as light
as the snow. Tonight, though,
she slipped out the door
well past midnight and walked
to an open space

in the park, breath puffing
out steam like the gaggle
of football linemen from Green Bay
she sees on TV, but here
there is no cheering crowd,

only light descending
from a distant streetlamp.
She now feels at peace, finally.
Finally... after all this fraught
and fragile time. All she wants

now is to leave a message.
Taking deep breaths, the cold air
coating her lungs, she looks
around: the space here is quiet, empty, waiting.
She sees only her footprints

in the snow leading up to this point.
Now she grins, spreads her arms
and falls backward, loosey-goosey.
Eight inches of snow cushion her --
it is like when she dreams

a blanket full of memories, warm, soft
and inviting. She laughs, arms and legs
displacing the snow, flinging it aside
like so many unimportant things
which no longer matter, nothing

except this one moment, there,
in the dark still night.
She wishes her daughter could see her,
to flail in the snow beside her,
both laughing as it had once been.

The moment passes and she carefully
rises. The snow angel is perfect, even a halo
made from the tips of her fur-lined parka hood.
Woo Woo retraces her steps, a single track
ending in a symmetry of wonder.