What is it about a snowfall? Even from the reaches of a darkened room it is clear that snow has fallen. Is it the muffled sounds reaching through the open window? Maybe it is the reflected light coming through the crack between the drapes in the pre-dawn darkness. Whatever tell-tale signs of this quintessential sign of winter, it came to us a couple of weeks ago. We stayed home rather than brave the drivers rushing to get to work. For a few days afterward tufts of snow sprouted from hidden corners or clung silently to the upper reach of a remaining apple.
The snow was supplanted by episodes of sun and rain that hung like drapery between us and that celestial warmth. Coldness lifted away from the clay soil and our temperate rainy season descended upon us. Our seasonal creek showed its seasonal mood swing by going from from torrential and dominant to a smooth flowing creek and back to demanding. The riparian zone though which it winds is but one marker of its presence. The sound of water rushing through ash, blackberry, snowberry, and currant is the dominant sound in the orchestra.
Chickadees, Red-Shafted Flickers, Stellar Jays, and Scrub Jays episodically mark a moment in time, but the rush of water playing against the string-like grasses and shrubs is like the constant play of violins in the background of an orchestra.
Thanks to Nerissa Draeger for this poem:
"Upon Discovering My Entire Solution to the Attainment of Immortality Erased from the Blackboard"
by Dobby Gibson
If you have seen the snow
somewhere slowly fall
on a bicycle,
then you understand
all beauty will be lost
and that even the loss
can be beautiful.
And if you have looked
at a winter garden
and seen not a winter garden
but a meditation on shape,
then you know why
this season is not
known for its words,
the cold too much
about the slowing of matter,
not enough about the making of it.
So you are blessed
to forget this way:
a jump rope in the ice melt,
a mitten that has lost its hand,
a sun that shines
as if it doesn't mean it.
And if in another season
you see a beautiful woman
use her bare hands
to smooth wrinkles
from her expensive dress
for the sake of dignity,
but in so doing trace
the outlines of her thighs,
then you will remember
surprise assumes a space
that has first been forgotten,
especially here, where we
rarely speak of it,
where we walk out onto the roofs
of frozen lakes
simply because we're stunned
we really can.
