On a cold winter night
If you cup your hand just right
And hold very, very still
You can hear old man Rousse over on elm hill
Faintly, ever so faintly heard
Is the scrape of a shovel, without a spoken word
After a snowfall he scrapes his drive bare
And then he goes back and scrapes what isn’t there
Paths laid out with metronome precision
A result of a man with only snow in his vision
Then he starts on roof and shingle
Pulling down snow to where there’s none left to mingle
Again he scrapes and scrapes his driveway bare
And then he goes back and scrapes what isn’t there
Then he starts on the front lawn
For old man Rousse there’s never a prescient dawn
The grass lay brown and combed with a rake
With nary a sign of the aforementioned flake
Then what space is left for the snow
Is terraced as high as it will go
Again he scrapes and scrapes and scrapes his driveway bare
And then he goes back and scrapes what isn’t there
So on a cold winter night
If you cup your hand just right
And hold very, very still
You can hear old man Rousse over on elm hill
Scraping, scraping, scraping a driveway so bare
Scraping at what really isn’t there