Our Lady of the Snow

He saw her on the prairie
Just inches above the frozen clay
And how the wind did buffet her
With a chill of minus twenty eight
In a wispy and sinuous way.

The ice did hang like the dew
From her arms and each pale breast
Yet the grass still swayed in the moonlight
With the rising and falling of his chest.

Her eyes glistened so sweetly
And her lips, just the faintest of red
And he fell at her feet like a dead man
When she reached out and touched his head.

So gently, he swooned in her gaze
And clung to her frozen thighs
And prayed to God that He’d let him
Through her arches and into the night.

The snow then started to fall
And he sighed at this reprieve;
He felt her hand on the back of his neck

And then, they found him on his knees
Off the side of the highway
Frozen in place
For all the world to see.