innocent snow flakes
form above, fall below;
we indulge them
briefly,
barely long enough
to appreciate their accumulated sparkle
leveling driveways and curbs
before,
day or night,
according to summer’s written agreement,
the conscientious toilers fire up their fossil fuel trenchers.
efficiently,
with grating scraping, beeping, and swiveling blasts of revealing beams,
they gouge out swaths through our naïve visitors,
piling up little alps,
reestablishing distinctions,
restoring,
too soon! too soon!
the vapid routes we require for our rapid lives.