You Don’t Know Snow

You don’t know snow

until you’ve heard coyotes howl;

your eyes and whiskers frosted shut

and from your nether regions, feeling gone.

If hell is real, there’ll be no fire

just icy winds across a barren plain.

You don’t know snow

until the saw-edged bite of frost

burns your numbed toes and fingertips

when they’re forced awake.

: by Ben Nuttall-Smith

poem and painting from his book, Crescent Beach Reflections