down on hands and knees

down on hands and knees 

packing snow onto the form

of a valentine

When I come out of the student center dining hall after lunch, it's still snowing lightly. On the slope east of the building a young man is busily scraping up snow and packing it into what looks like the beginning of a snowman. I walk over for a better look. Clearly, it's not the base of a snowman. It's a snow sculpture, a kind of Modigliani marble bas relief of a supine woman, just her head and torso, no arms or legs. The sculptor looks up with a grin when I approach.
          "I've never seen a horizontal snow-woman before," I say.
          "Yeah, I just thought of it," he replies, hands busily packing snow onto the narrow hips.
          We shake hands as I introduce myself and he tells me his name his Ray.
          "I'm from Florida," he says. "I love snow!"
          "I'm from the Midwest and I love snow too. Are you an art major?"
          "I haven't declared a major yet, but I love putting weird things together. You know, like human hair and Legos."
          "I like to put together weird things, too," I reply, thinking about this photograph of a young man in a pinstrip parka with a red plaid hood, a tweed bucket hat, striped mittens, green plaid scarf, lace-up boots and a white dhoti, down on his knees patting snow onto the form of a woman as cold as alabaster.
          The next day is Valentine's Day and the snow is melting. On my way to the dining hall I look for the snow sculpture, wondering whether it survived. From a distance I see what looks like a white moat and something blue inside. What on earth? When I get close enough to see the finished sculpture I start laughing. The artist has dyed the snow woman blue with red lips and a red heart. She now has legs, though no feet and still no arms. Around her head is a crown made of sticks and on either side of her figure there's a message spelled out in sticks: FOR YOU and I LOVE YOU.