Snow Statues (written in April for the 2012 Blog Challenge)This is a tribute to my mother who loved to sculpt snow statues. In the winter, if the snow was just right, on Sunday, after working all week, she would sculpt snow statues. My sister and I wished she were like other mothers who did "normal" things because sometimes she sculpted nude statues. "Please put clothes on them," we would beg her, but she followed her own muse and made ephemeral statues made of snow. Often there would be a theme: Christmas, a creche; Valentine's Day, lovers holding hands behind a tree; and Easter bunnies. The lover theme she did every year on Valentine's day; first holding hands, the following year presenting a Valentine's heart, and finally, the gentleman on his knee proposing. The neighbors loved it and occasionally photographs of her work appeared in the paper. I wrote this poem many years after her death. The photograph inspired it.
Smiling into the camera,
my hands resting on my
little sister's shoulders,
My mother asking us to smile
as we squinted into the sun.
She wanted to take
a picture of her creations,
the three of us.
I remember how she loved
being outdoors,
sculpting those statues,
so many of them,
so many different Sundays.
As she worked, she and
Michelangelo
shared the same joy,
as she sculpted, molding
the snow into a thing of beauty.
All those trillions of snowflakes
transformed into art
and for a few hours,
she forgot the pain
inside the house.
