Snow again last night, light powdery snow with no wind.
This dark forested world now outlined in white, each
branch, each twig, each needle, each blade of bamboo.
Flowerpots sport crystal fezzes. The cloud cover shatters,
exposes slivers of a Wedgwood blue sky. My heart
sinks down and down. Where did you go, Mom?

I miss the curve of your back when after a bath
you perched naked on the edge of the bed, one leg
pulled up under your chin, filing your nails, book
open on the nightstand in the blue and white bedroom
with its long windows and eyelet dresser scarves.

Here, today, the clouds knit back together, snow
falls anew, wetter, heavier. It fills boot holes, covers
the edges of the walkway where varied thrushes
have kicked up the duff. In the night I am startled
awake, as clumps of wet snow smash into skylights.

So many snowy nights curled in the pink wing chair
you read, sipped bourbon, smoked Lucky Strikes.
Upstairs awake under my scratchy wool blanket
I listened to pages turn, to the whump of the furnace,
to the scrape of snowplows on macadam,
then finally the crunch of tires on the driveway.

The winter you died, a string of blizzards slammed
into New England. I’d taken you to the hospital for tests,
but couldn’t get you home. All night I roamed darkened
halls, watched the storm howl down the mountain,
where in summer vultures kettle on thermal updrafts.

From the recliner in your room I stared at snowflakes
swirling around the black windows of the old yellow
glazed-brick wing, where you lay in a coma the year
you didn’t die. I can’t remember if it snowed that Christmas,
but it was back when snowless holidays were an anomaly.

In the morning I talked with your doctor.
There would be no more tests, you’d reached
the end of your road. He sent us home
in an ambulance, said he’d stop by later.
So kind, I thought as I watched the sun glint
off deep drifts jammed up against snow fencing.

The first day of your active dying, hospice protocols
in place, I slipped out for a walk, saw the heron rise
from the pond, circle your bedroom three times then fly
northeast across the marsh. Hardly an omen, a resident bird
returning to its nighttime roost, but remembered

five days later, standing in the same spot a shadow
passed over. A black vulture, rare winter visitor, teetered
in the wind, circled the house three times then sailed
northeast across the marsh. And just like that
                   you were gone.