Spring Snow by Arthur Sze

A spring snow coincides with plum blossoms.

In a month, you will forget, then remember

when nine ravens perched in the elm sway in wind.

I will remember when I brake to a stop,

and a hubcap rolls through the intersection.

An angry man grinds pepper onto his salad;

it is how you nail a tin amulet ear

into the lintel. If, in deep emotion, we are

possessed by the idea of possession,

we can never lose to recover what is ours.

Sounds of an abacus are amplified and condensed

to resemble sounds of hail on a tin roof,

but mind opens to the smell of lightening.

Bodies were vaporized to shadows by intense heat;

in memory people outline bodies on walls.

            This poem caught my attention because when I say Spring and Snow together it just didn’t seem like they would go together, because you usually see snow in the winter not spring. Furthermore, there is a big contrast in the title because when I think of snow I think of cold, winter, discomfort, and when I think of spring, I think of water, green mountain hills, dancing, laughing, rebirth and many other happy things that do not associate itself with snow.