Another poem to share

Second draft of the one I've been working on for class. Your thoughts/critiques are deeply appreciated as always.

Solitaire

Outside the bedroom window the snow flickers
sideways, busy at the labor of being cold

and falling. You are in the seat by the window, listening
to Fur Elise. The music is a dark-honey sob caught firm

in my ears; it sways me in place, thickening the air with golden
notes of regret. The snow is coming down as if it’s embarrassed

to witness this. It seems to temporize, defensive--
I’m just doing my job here, falling and being cold.

It’s nothing personal.

I was playing Solitaire in the kitchen this morning,
because Solitaire is just something that I do

when the particles of my life are spinning crazy
around me. I don’t know how to gather them in; they elude

me, and I’m reaching out to grab a fistful of whirling
snow, and clasping only a drop or two of winter water

in my open palm. I make them wait for the Ace, the Queen,
and by the time I make thirteen, I know again

the thing I had forgotten: stillness. Outside

the street is frosted somber white. A bare handful of early
buttercups are thrust skyward, the defiant heads of martyrs

straining for every last breath of February sunlight; a spray
of brave gold, coins spilled in the snow. Broken, and quietly buried.

I am almost ready to leave, but I’ve forgotten something
again that I’ll come looking for later. You will

be here, and you will be listening still
to Beethoven in the seat by the window, because

sad music is just something that you do.

Just a thought, and I'll probably do a bad job of saying what I mean, but some of your verb/adverb/adjective choices seem to work against the tone of the poem. The first four couplets seem overwritten.

The imagery is gorgeous.

I love the mood it evokes, the imagery.

But the line "It’s nothing personal." seems really jarring to me, stops the poem in it's tracks too much, maybe more than you intended.

     You are in the seat by the window, listening
to Fur Elise. The music is a dark-honey sob caught firm

in my ears;

That is gorgeous! :applause:

RL