Gratitude Ode: Snowplow

--Jeffrey Bean

Kind yellow bull pacing

the borders of the neighborhood,

trampling the edges where city light

meets blue-black frozen fields. Push,

shove: same simple philosophy

of razor on face, groom and smooth.

Tireless whittler, while we sleep

you cut back into being

the grids our forebears dreamed

so in the morning we can glide

along our cold inheritance.

On the interstate, in your gray wake,

you scatter salt like a flower girl

flinging fistfuls of petals on a carpet

at a bride’s feet. Tang of steel and ice,

grit of sand and long work. In your belly:

a human mind, an illuminated map,

hands clutching a canister

of caffeine that for half a night

stays hot as a brain. While I sip gin

above a warm wood floor,

you flash your green and orange lights,

you carry night on your shoulders,

my good friend, my wild-eyed beauty,

path smasher. Across the places

you made for me, your constellations

of salt, I head toward Orion’s belt,

clear road forward I did nothing to deserve.