Baca Inspired

I wrote about the Baca readings in my other blog, so I will use this entry to begin a poem that uses a line from a Baca poem, ‘Leaps.’


Stay

Cold and dark outside,
we should be inside.
My daughter touches the snow
and looks up at me,
“Brrr, it’s cold,”
she says with enthusiasm,
her eyes twice as wide.
Cars slush by our house
leaving a trail of exhaust
that blackens the road’s snowy blanket.
“They’re going places,”
I tell her when she asks
what the cars are doing.
“Like Mommy, she had to go
see some friends; the cars are going
to see some friends too.”
We build a snowman
and put a hat on him,
an ordinary hat that just sits
on top of the head,
doesn’t make him dance around.
We make the obligatory snow angels
and she has the most fun
when she learns how to ball it up
and throw it at me.
“No,” she says abruptly
but with a smile
when I ask if she’s ready to go in.
So we stay outside
tossing snow and falling into it
and I watch every car that goes by
waiting for the one that turns
into our driveway
where the light above the garage
illuminates the snowflakes
that seem to slow down
as fate, like the night
swallows their faces.

That’s a first draft. We’ll see if something better comes from it. Thank you, Mr. Baca.