Facing Snow Effacing

There is the smell of snow wanting to come
From gray lowering of the sky’s ceiling,
The stillness of the air’s thickening now
As if with foreknowledge of the first flake

It will fill as if the sky were falling
When it is only crystallized cloud bites
That make for suddenness of white, surprise
Although anticipated through many breaths

White on white on white, accumulation
Of the shearing of the great cloud flock,
The sky coming near as ground rises up,
Visibility tattered intimate

Touch on tip of nose, cold on open palm,
Banked in the ridges of bushy eyebrows