After Bruegel’s ‘Winter Landscape’

 

Snow covers the houses,
snow covers the mud,
snow covers the tops of our heads.

I watch them, racing and running and laughing
because the sky is still powdery blue,
supper is hours away.

He races towards the ball
and runs past him and him and her and them
and his mouth is sucking in as much life as his eyes.

To them, the trees aren’t dead or barren or bleak.
The gaps in the branches mean more air for the birds,
the birds they still confuse with their ball

because childhood still means flying
and dashing and jumping and it’s time
for me to go inside and give them back their world.

***

Vanessa Ogle is a former New York City journalist who now writes fiction and poetry. As a journalist, she covered politics, development, and environmental issues. Originally from Michigan, she now lives in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn.