Lost, fallen and alone – this snow died.
Thinking no one would care, it became
a carcass, desiring the innate sympathies
people have for the death of an animal
even if their own kind can matter so much
less. Here is its shape of living, an outline
where the hollow look will elicit concern.

There is the other question of its last gasp –
was it running when it fell, exhausted and
somehow scared? This does not register in
the dead grass shooting through its side or
blood of the soil. Yet it is an animal, too big
for petting, but still clean and white and soft
and tugging at whatever strings will melt.

[picture by artist and photographer Nick Dormand]