Back Soon; Driving—

--Carl Phillips

The way the present cuts into history,

or how the future can look at first

like the past sweeping through, there

are blizzards, and there are blizzards.

Some contain us; some we carry

within us until they die, when we do.

The snow falls there, barely snowing,

into a long wooden trough where

the cattle feed on those apples we

used to call medieval, or I did,

for their smallish size, as if medieval

meant the world in miniature but

not so different otherwise from

our own, just smaller, a bit sweeter,

more prone therefore to rot quickly,

which is maybe not the worst thing.

Revelation is not disclosure. I love

how the snow, taking itself now more

seriously, makes the cattle look softer,

for a moment, than their hard bodies are.