The Forecast Poem by Suzanne Louise Bishop

You told me, said the snow is coming.
Eskimos have over 50 words for it.
Snowflakes with their unique symbols,
Never the same. This won’t happen again.
You are snowflesh.
Along the street people cover the cars
With an ice sheet.
Bring in the cats who curl into themselves
On a hearth mat.
Out in the world there is the hush,
Life slowed down and the sound turned off.
The children, mystic and pale,
Press their hands onto the windows,
And exhale,
Drawing their happier faces,
Which they have forecast,
Like you forecast the coming of snow.
I will build for you a snow man,
And have a hundred names for him;
Tingenek, muaja, aput, Sikko.