Snowman

During the best of the snow someone took the time to make a snow family in the yard on the other side of my building. They lack for faces or clothing but at least their creator saw fit to provide them with skinny twigs for arms. Today's sunshine and warmth took a toll on them and now they don't resemble people so much as some sort of bizarre snowhenge, three oddly shaped obelisks jutting up in a ring, slush totems that fail at announcing the time or day of the year.

As Duncan warily moved among them, not quite sure what to think, I remembered the afternoon of Christmas Eve when Duncan and I took Ruth to the park for a walk through a tremendous snow storm. While Duncan galloped and careened among the trees, Ruth and I rolled up the first snowman I've built in probably twenty years. He was a nice tall fellow with enormous hips, a wide belly and a head as big around as a boulder. We found berries for his eyes, twigs for his brows, a red seed pod for his smile and Duncan provided sticks for arms.

I've thought of him a lot the last couple of weeks, wondered if he's still there, even if only as a slushy pillar. It's a shame that our snow people have to melt, leaving on the memory of their births behind. But even when they seem to serve no further purpose, Duncan finds them useful as places from which to retrieve his sticks. As we passed by the trio in the yard this afternoon he sniffed them cautiously then pulled off one of the arms before merrily prancing away.