Snow is warm, the scientists agree;
But if I explain this, would it be poetry?
“Winter kept us warm” is from T.S. Eliot,
But The Waste Land does not say a lot.
Don’t let the footnotes fool you; a show
Of learning isn’t learning. Can I explain? Snow
Is water vapor, and water vapor is the true
Greenhouse effect, not CO2.
Snow, therefore, is warm; what Eliot meant
Was emotional; he wasn’t of a scientific bent—
Oh but he was. He kept it mostly hidden;
The tradition he inherited was: poetry comes to one unbidden,
In a romantic shower of rain
As spring hurtles itself along the small English plain
Where the gray mist shows gray trees dripping
Outside a vine covered window where Aldous Huxley is tripping,
As he dies, but tries to live inside LSD;
Look through the window; you’ll see lots of poetry:
Wrinkled, clutching, hands, and a man about to go
Into a sweet afterlife of warm snow.