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A Chair in Snow

It rains so often where I live that my deck furniture never gets a chance to fully dry up and is beginning to fall apart. What used to once be a place to sit and enjoy warm days is now mostly an eyesore now. I need to get rid of the crumbling furniture and the moldy seat covers. 

I probably don't because the presence of these decrepit chairs an implied option of enjoying the sun when it comes out. If I turn the place bare then that illusion disappears as well. It is an acknowledgment of what cannot be. 

After a snowfall, the chairs look particularly sad - it's like their last vestige of usefulness was taken away by becoming a receptacle for several inches of snow. 

Jane Hirshfield conveys this feeling perfectly in her poem A Chair in Snow

A chair in snow 
should be
like any other object whited
& rounded

and yet a chair in snow is always sad


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