Across my social media, I see clips of weather radar,

the current temperature, decreasing

the wind chill,

negative

.

Everyone

in beanies, with scarves

meeting in the middle

so only their eyebrows peek out,

the one patch of fur

growing from our red, raw skin, and

does Minnesota think man

tries to dupe her with synthetic

wolf coats and bear hats

?

I wonder

if she is a little like you,

humoring herself in her unpredictability,

in man’s annual exclamations of “Why do I live here??”

Just when we think we’ve

figured you out,

you send the first snowstorm and we’ve all forgotten

how to drive.

Are we so arrogant,

these synthetic-fur-wearing-warm-blooded settlers,

that we jump our batteries

and flex our four-wheel-drives

in recognition of our superpower,

busyness

?

I wonder

if you long to be noticed

in the way

I walk out the door

and my breath momentarily

fogs the lenses over my eyes.

 

In the way

the snow lies naked and white,

a mercy-covering for fallow ground,

majestic in its glittering beauty

and quiet in its boast.

 

In the way

the sun shines brightest, clearest

the colder the temperature

falls.

 

In the way

you are sovereign over every degree

and send a bitter wind to see

if we will stop

.

And pay attention to the truth:

 

that your beauty

is revealed in adversity,

 

that you are never

in a hurry

,

that you long to quell

every fear and anxiety–

which will surface in the slowness–

with a mercy-covering like snow,

 

and

 

that you give us this day our daily bread,

the aboriginal rest

our bred-in-captivity lies can never slice

or deliver.