Monday
18 December 2017

— the season when the forest pines get to shine.

Good Morning All,

I wrote the poem below one evening last week after spending the whole afternoon feeling homesick for snow. Real snow. Proper snow. Good old New England snow. The blizzardy kind coming at night when we kept our fingers crossed to hear early in the morning the fire station siren signalling No School, and then having it confirmed on WHDH a little later with that most wonderful of all poetry: “No schools all schools all day in Abington, Acton, Allston, Arlington … “

And then out all day sledding and shovelling under the impossible blue sky and the air so crystalline in its clarity one's lungs tingled to inhale it.

The elderly lady in the poem did live in the big house across the street before our friends the Carrolls moved in. I don’t think she was completely blind because—as I’ve mentioned—she always called my dad to thank him on the day he put our outdoor lights up on the yew bush. Still, when I was in her house, it always fascinated me how well she navigated the rooms and the furniture in them, as often as not in the dark.

My friend Neuman who lived on the other side of her and I visited her often, to read her the Globe, especially the funnies, and to sample the chocolates mentioned in the poem. It did not occur to us—at least not to me—that when she corrected our pronunciation of some word or other, she was helping us learn to read. Now that I am old myself, I can understand what a pleasure such small acts can be.

She’s the woman whose death so spooked me I was afraid to go past her house, sure that she was watching from behind the curtains, until—and I know I’ve told this story before—she appeared between my friend Jackie Carroll and me in the pitch-black basement as a hovering ball of ethereal light that somehow let me know she was doing okay, and I had nothing to worry about.

After the Snow Storm
C. R. Magwaza

I knocked on the door of Mrs. Ladd,
The white-haired lady across the street.
Need any shovelling, I asked, your drive,
Your flagstone walks, and steps? My first
Venture ever into the world of commerce,
She was blind and I was nine, must have
Weighed eighty pounds with the shovel.

She had no car, never went out, no need.
Thank God you’ve come, my boy, she said,
And added, I hear it’s quite a lot, you know.
Nothing I can’t handle, I replied, eight inches
Of light fluff that took me three hours,
Since even then I was meticulous, since even
Then the snow poetry to money angle escaped me.

Come in, she said, have a cup of hot chocolate,
These buttered muffins from the oven,
Adding, no, no, it’s fine, the floor’s linoleum.
She asked how much should she pay me,
Since I’d been at it three hours. I replied,
Let’s call it two, since I work slow. You
Shall have the three, she said, a dollar for each.

For four years, I shovelled her walks, mowed her
Lawn. A marshmallow afloat in the Coaco mugs,
Iced lemonades. On Wednesdays I fetched her
Groceries in my wagon, then read to her from my
Donald Ducks, and we killed ourselves, and she gave
Me chocolates from a big box. People who helped
Give me to myself? Blind old Mrs. Ladd, for sure.

Go Well and Stay Well,

Bhekaron

P.S. One Holly snap and one Johs snap: