Homes on our dirt road quiet,
breath sucked into the storm.
I sit still in the kitchen
planted like a push pin.
Snow grabs barn roofs,
stone walls, stuck cars.
Wind tries to shake drifts
free, hurry them into nothing.
I want to save each flake,
and icicle for barren fields
drought desperate in summer.
For heartbroken farmers
at the Madison with their beers.
For bowed heads in church pews.
Earth is not a door
that will never slam shut.
I am trying these days to still believe
in people. Which is to say,
to believe everyone will struggle
to save what we can of the planet.
We can see to what length we can change.
We can see to what length even our gods
will turn things around.
Nancy Huxtable Mohr (she/her) is based in Northern California and Upstate New York. Once a farm girl, always a farm girl. She is a retired teacher and arts administrator, taught poetry with California Poets in the Schools and in a women’s prison. She is a in the Community of Writers, and a Bread Loaf Writers Participant. Her work may be found in her book, The Well and most recently in Black Fox Poetry, Loch Raven Review, Hyacinth Review, Two Hawks Quarterly, The MacGuffin, and others. She was shortlisted for the 2022 UK Environmental Poetry Prize.