Blue Coat Passing – A Poem by Phoebe Hamel

Submitted by Phoebe Hamel

Today is cold but not bitterly so.
Outside a man walks from a door to the street
In a blue peacoat and hat; his sand-colored face
Houses eyes that shirk the air
Of his sixty-seventh winter, or so.

Leaves no longer pile but languish,
Casualties of November and the time that’s passed
Since they rained down gold and glorious,
The jewels of Queen October;
Now brown, wet, weary, they litter the sidewalk.

It has snowed once, two days ago,
Two inches tall on each little branch of each tree,
Light and buoyant flakes the size of dimes.
The town was excited; wrapped in scarves,
They played Christmas music in the early darkness.

Then the melt, the white turned grey
With age (a lifespan of a day in thirty-one degrees),
And a blue coat passing one remaining spot
Of yellow in a leafy sidewalk slop
Is our pop of color for the muted day.

About the Poet

Phoebe Hamel is a teacher of English as a Foreign Language currently living and working in Barcelona, Spain. Previously, her writing has appeared in NEAT Magazine, Synaesthesia Magazine, and The Grounds Journal.