The first warm day,
and by mid-afternoon
the snow is no more
than a washing
strewn over the yards,
the bedding rolled in knots
and leaking water,
the white shirts lying
under the evergreens
Here he is describing the process of the snow melting mid-afternoon and showing the effects the snow have on the cement grounds and evergreens meaning grass and plants. It is here i see how the poem shown its true effect on the first warm day of late february. Also I would point to the line that said:
But such a spring is brief;
by five o’clock
the chill of sundown
this is true as we all wintess this year and all as young kids growing up in New York City. Meanwhile we do begin to notice the change at 5 o'clock as the sun begins to slowly go away wether your playing outside as a child or leaving work as a adult we feel the warm in the afternoon disappear to cold chills by 5 o'clock.
To conclude Ted Kosser did a great job with his words in this poem as she paints a beautiful time of season and makes it feel like its late February in NYC that he is describing to me.
the literal surface of the poem is one thing--but of course, the poetry is in the suggestiveness of of the details, and the metaphors--comparing the melting snow to strewn laundry, the formerly burried items appearing like ruins of a carnival, blue TVs flashing like storms, etc.; one of the most disturbing image seems to be a literal one, the body of the farmer, perhaps having some relation to farms that have been "staked for streets and sewers" (suggesting...?), along with dogs "barking / at nothing" and the speaker's noting that the "spring is brief"--and so much else: The particular details of the imagery are what lend a tone of existential angst to the poem, and irony to the little turning "Tilt-A- Whirl" (i.e.,-bicycle wheel cum snow-beached carnival ride). The Tilt-A Whirl itself, like the laundry, in conjunction with the "staked" fields, symbols of a life, a way of life, gone awry. Much more to consider, here, than literal description...
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