Walt Whitman in Todays' Tennessee

Here's a poem from Actual Air, by David Berman - lead singer of the Silver Jews, whose show in Austin 2 weeks ago I will eventually share more about.

Snow

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 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.