SNOW! Now you see it--Now you don't --Now you see it !

I woke around 2 AM  and looked out the back window  to the yard that has been snow covered for so many weeks.  Much to my delight I could see the bare earth and the  bushes and trees that I had planted last Spring. 

  I started  thinking that  maybe I would find early bulbs pushing their bold green tips into the light  or muscari peeking  up or Lenten roses  in their shy blooming.  I turned over and went back to sleep smiling. 
 Then 4 hours later  I woke in the cold light of dawn and looked out--hard to believe and harder to accept-- the ground was again  covered in white and the snow was still falling.

So  now  my dreams of rising with the Spring and actually getting my car that has been abandoned in my driveway since December to start again are being severely tested. 
I still hope that on the great Saint's Day  I will  be able to get to see  Aunt  Anna and celebrate with her.  The Irish flag did not go out today because of the snow storm.  But I am back online and the problem of access to the internet seems to have resolved itself after  I shut the FIOS connection off and on. SO I can blog again.

This has  been a long, frigid, and snowy winter in the Bucket.  How have  you gotten through it?

Narragansett Race Track

In the old way of  talking--my father  "followed the horses."  In the 50s that was  easy to do in Pawtucket--he had  two good options  Narragansett Race Track and Lincoln Downs.  Both are gone now-- he also had his pick of bookies. One ran a small store on Prospect Street and often my father would write down his picks and  give them to me to give to the store keeper. 
 Of course,  Building 19 has  taken over the space that was the  Narragansett. Whenever I go  there I am flooded with memories of going there with my father. He was a compulsive gambler and had little control in that area of his life.  He taught me to read  the racing form when I was a toddler, and we often discussed the horses that were running and  he would let me pick.  
He was superstitious--what gambler isn't?-- so if I insisted on some horse because I liked the name,  he  would usually bet on my hunch.
Recently I have been thinking about the life lessons that my father taught and have written a few poems about those.  Three have been published as  part of the Origami Poetry  Project.  I will include them here.
 I will try to attach their tiny chapbook to this  post. Hope I can do it.  If not look on line  for Origami Poetry and my chapbook is titled "The Long Count."