Brooms of Steel? Or Shovels of Plastic?

 

Looking northeast from my front stoop this evening

#1252 

 

Like Brooms of Steel

The Snow and Wind

Had swept the Winter Street -

The House was hooked

The Sun sent out

Faint Deputies of Heat -

Where rode the Bird

The Silence tied

His ample - plodding Steed

The Apple in the Cellar snug

Was all the one that played.

 

-Emily Dickinson

I searched for Emily Dickinson winter poem and this was what DuckDuckGo produced for me. I will have read it before but I didn't really remember it; it was suggested by this post.

 

It wasn't Brooms of Steel that shovelled that walk, but my nice kid (?25--that makes him a kid to me these days) neighbour to the north, who this morning not only shovelled his walk and the laneway between the houses, but then went on to do my walk as well. It continued snowing most of the day, but before I even got around to doing the touch up, he'd done it. I did manage to shovel the flat part of our roof--shovelling is not the worst of household chores I feel, and I--almost--missed having a chance to do it.

 

You might call what the city's snowplow has Brooms of Steel, I suppose. 

 

Our weather's been odd. Snow, a bit over a week ago, which suggested last week's Frost poem, but then everything melted again, and just today we had a significant new snow, so another snow poem was called for after all. The Deputies of Heat today were indeed fairly faint. (A high of 15F.)

Linda Sue Grimes, whose post I poached from, reminds that hooking is something one does to produce rugs (I can't give you any details) and suggests that the Steed the bird rides is a tree. Certainly the pine tree of our front yard in the picture is a welcome home to birds.