The first snow of the season (in my area) came around last night. Or rather, very early this morning. I was up past my bedtime, bundled in wool pants and my over sized winter coat, sitting cross-legged on the cold ground with a large black cat sitting in my lap. She doesn't like getting her paws wet.

    Then I noticed funny little white flake-type things appearing on the back of the cat. I brushed them away, and they appeared again. I thought it was some kind of evil magic at first, and it was, but in the form of snow. Anyway, the first snow-fall isn't the most exciting thing around here, since it always melts the next day. But it still reminded me of this poem, The First Snow-Fall by James Russel Lowell. It's depressing, but I'm going to share it anyway.

The First Snow-Fall

By James Russell Lowell

THE SNOW had begun in the gloaming,   And busily all the night Had been heaping field and highway   With a silence deep and white.   Every pine and fir and hemlock         5   Wore ermine too dear for an earl, And the poorest twig on the elm-tree   Was ridged inch deep with pearl.   From sheds new-roofed with Carrara   Came Chanticleer’s muffled crow,         10 The stiff rails softened to swan’s-down,   And still fluttered down the snow.   I stood and watched by the window   The noiseless work of the sky, And the sudden flurries of snow-birds,         15   Like brown leaves whirling by.   I thought of a mound in sweet Auburn   Where a little headstone stood; How the flakes were folding it gently,   As did robins the babes in the wood.         20   Up spoke our own little Mabel,   Saying, “Father, who makes it snow?” And I told of the good All-father   Who cares for us here below.   Again I looked at the snow-fall,         25   And thought of the leaden sky That arched o’er our first great sorrow,   When that mound was heaped so high.   I remembered the gradual patience   That fell from that cloud like snow,         30 Flake by flake, healing and hiding   The scar that renewed our woe.   And again to the child I whispered,   “The snow that husheth all, Darling, the merciful Father         35   Alone can make it fall!”   Then, with eyes that saw not, I kissed her;   And she, kissing back, could not know That my kiss was given to her sister,   Folded close under deepening snow.         40

 

I thought the worst thing was suddenly remembering what you always wanted.

But no, the worst thing is realizing that you still want it.

     The snow was falling all around me. The trees, in their white blankets, shed the weight of winter like feathers from an old hen. It's the way with these lonely nights, they find ways of creeping up your jacket, along your spine- and the stars are quiet witnesses to it all. This darkness, I know, would surely swallow me were it not for the Moon. Though blinding and cold, she catches me before I fall.
     The Mistress of these skies, she sings to me, but a song that is full of tears. She is cold at night, abandoned by her shining star. She reaches down to touch me with frozen fingers, frightened, shaking and weak. She is more alone than I am, yet she comforts me, pleading that I do not give my heart away as she did.
     My misguided footsteps tread on twigs frigid with cold. They snap alarmingly in the silence. The whispering of the trees is hushed by the shivering of their branches. This howling solitude will rob us all of sleep, but for the better, perhaps, lest we dream.
     I walk tenderly onto a frozen pond, but it jerks suddenly, throwing me on my back with spite in its embrace. I lie there upon the ice, my fingers tracing patterns along its smooth surface. I'll have to forgive it, I decide, for I know it's not itself tonight. Perhaps this is where my journey is meant to end.
     The snow, still falling heavily, no longer melts upon my skin as it settles in to cover me. Funny, I've never felt so close to anything before this moment, blanketed by the snow and the shadows of the trees above me. I smile at the moon, and tell her not to worry. She's sad to see me go, but I promise not to leave.
     Hollow, and already dreaming, I finally fall asleep.

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     Eh, it's not the best. But it was time for an update.