Removing the Dross

After snowstorms my father shoveled the driveway where it lay open to a sweep of wind across a neighbor’s field, where the snow drifted half way down to the paved road, before snow-blowers, before pick-ups cruised the streets with THE BOSS lettered on red plows. He heated the flat shovel in the woodstove till the blade steamed, like Vulcan at his furnace removing the dross, then rubbed a hissing candle on the steel so the snow would slide unchecked as he made each toss. He marked blocks with the waxed blade, lifted and tossed, lifted and tossed again, squaring off against the snow.