Snow by David Berman

Snow

David Berman

Walking through a field with my little brother Seth

I pointed to a place where kids had made angels in the snow.
For some reason, I told him that a troop of angels
had been shot and dissolved when they hit the ground.

He asked who had shot them and I said a farmer.

Then we were on the roof of the lake.
The ice looked like a photograph of water.

Why he asked. Why did he shoot them.

I didn't know where I was going with this.

They were on his property, I said.

When it's snowing, the outdoors seem like a room.

Today I traded hellos with my neighbor.
Our voices hung close in the new acoustics.
A room with the walls blasted to shreds and falling.

We returned to our shoveling, working side by side in silence.

But why were they on his property, he asked.

This poem stood out to me because I am just like the "little brother." I never forget what someone told me, especially someone I trust, and I always want to know why. I will keep asking until my mom, or who ever else I am asking, gets so frustrated with me that I have to stop. I always want to know why this happened, or why that happened, or why a person would do something.  This poem shows that even in a different setting, the angels being shot were always on the brother's mind and he just wanted to know why.  I feel like the older brother or sister opened a curious part in the brother's mind where he just had to know why it happened, because he was scared.

Technique:
This poem has a period after each thought, which is usually each line, which makes it easier to read. There is no rhyme but it still has a lot of meaning and thought. The symbols in this poem were snow, angels, outdoors, water, and many others. They all symbolized that as life went on, all the younger brother thought about were the angels that were shot.