Dust of Snow

The way a crow

Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

~ Robert Frost

Last night as we came home, it was frigid. So cold that the snow squeaked, not crunched. Today it was really cold too - around 9 degrees. I hung a curtain over our front door to help stop some of the drafts. (We also used it to make a tent for part of the day.) As I drove to a Ladies Bible Study tonight, the gusts across the interstate were a little scary. And my nose didn't warm up until I got home after the study. However, the snow and the cold were making me feel rather poetic.

I never know just where to go,

when all the world is full of snow.

 

I do not want to make a track,

not even to the shed and back.

 

I only want to watch and wait,

while snow moths settle on the gate,

 

and swarming frostflakes fill the trees

with billions of albino bees.

 

I only want myself to be

as silent as a winter tree,

 

to hear the swirling stillness grow,

when all the world is full of snow.

 

~ N.M. Bodecker