The Ways of Water

by Russell Rowland

That heap of white out front
was Emma’s first snowman of the season,
raised from initial inches
which melted almost as quickly as they fell.

She’s little still, to understand how water
comes and goes, changing forms,
always at hand in its latest embodiment.
In class she’ll hear about it.

Too young to appreciate
how a snow-child melts into the rich soil
of time: once beloved,
comes back loving; once a daughter,

returns a mother.
If schools don’t tell us, we learn as much
from the ways of water—
how one snow-person builds another.