Snow

Yesterday the East Coast was socked in by a rock-em, sock-em, snow storm. Not quite a blizzard, but a decent deep dusting--in my area, a foot or more. Enough to cancel mass transit, keep people off the roads, and close the malls early, only a week before Xmas. So what more appropriate theme for today than the good white fluffy stuff? Here are two:

December Moon

Before going to bed
After a fall of snow
I look out on the field
Shining there in the moonlight
So calm, untouched and white
Snow silence fills my head
After I leave the window.

Hours later near dawn
When I look down again
The whole landscape has changed
The perfect surface gone
Criss-crossed and written on
Where the wild creatures ranged
While the moon rose and shone.

Why did my dog not bark?
Why did hear no sound
There on the snow-locked ground
In the tumultuous dark?

How much can come, how much can go
When the December moon is bright,
What worlds of play we'll never know
Sleeping away the cold white night
After a fall of snow.
--May Sarton

(And if you want more Sarton, go here: http://www.languageisavirus.com/may-sarton/.)


And this one, which introduced me to the work of William Stafford, who quickly became a favorite poet.

Snow

Without a word I arrive quietly. A random stranger,
sometimes I appear at a farm window and look in.
They panic, I don't know why. Will I quell
their fire? I tap to enter, to embrace them.
Why do they struggle so? Surely their lives
have a place for this gift I bring.
I turn with my millions, unroll a robe constantly
offered, and go where my limber fate invents
itself, always different and always the same.

I try a new farm, to be a stranger again;
at the schoolground I try to heal the children,
to muffle their screams. Where earth is torn open
I fill it in. Nobody can escape this embrace;
nobody will be left alone. In the cemetery
every grave has its decoration, reverently
placed. On even the littlest grave I trace
each word and carefully spell the names.

"I turn with my millions": This line in itself is a fair description of Stafford's output: a life's output of about 22,000 poems, 3,000 of which were published in 57 volumes of poetry. Here's the kicker: his first book wasn't published until he was in his late 40's. Never too late to start. For more Stafford: http://williamstaffordarchives.org/