During the last couple of weeks, every morning when I wake up the first thing I do is look out the window to see if any snow has fallen overnight. So far, there’s been no more than one miserly dusting.
Despite the fact that it’s difficult to move around in, creating one more barrier to connecting with other people in person, I still yearn to see the white stuff on the ground, to feel that damp snap in the air, and to relish the muffled silence it creates in the neighborhood.
I love snow. I’m one of those weird people who dreams of retiring to the woody mountains of northern Vermont, not the flat beaches of Florida or the arid cities of Arizona. I even like to be a bit chilly, and to wear a big flannel shirt then bundle up under a warm comforter.
There’s just something soothing about snow, even as I’m aware of its dangers for those forced to travel without reliable transportation. As terrible as I felt for all those people stuck on the freeways of Virginia last week, I was envious of their weather.
So, I’d like to share with you a poem I came across recently, as I hope that the weather forecast is right and it snows in the next couple of days. It’s by American poet Katie Ford, who was born in 1975, and has taught at Loyola University and the University of California at Riverside.
I prefer it even to love,
alone and without ghost
it falls a hard weather,
a withdrawing room
that revives me to stolen daylight
in which I feel no wish
to brush a gleaming finish
over the sheen-broken glass
I’ve arranged and rearranged
as apprentice of mosaics
who will not be taught but asks
to be left alone with the brittle year
so carnivorous of all I’d made.
But the snow I love covers
my beasts and seas,
my ferns and spines
worn through and through.
I will change your life, it says,
to which I say, please.
