The White Stuff

This poem, by the “Belle” of my former home, Amherst, arrived in my e-mailbox yesterday, from poetry.org.  (If you don’t already subscribe, you might want to; I have discovered poets I never knew, and now love, through these daily introductions.)

Every child I know is itching for snow, some with a truly impressive intensity, while my middle-aged self, far from my harsh climatological origins, and sometimes overwhelmed by the logistics of a clear day, cringes at the thought of significant snowfall. To remind us all of the new-making, transformational power of snowfall, I share this:

It sifts from Leaden Sieves -by Emily Dickinson

It sifts from Leaden Sieves -

It powders all the Wood.

It fills with Alabaster Wool

The Wrinkles of the Road -

It makes an Even Face

Of Mountain, and of Plain -

Unbroken Forehead from the East

Unto the East again -

It reaches to the Fence -

It wraps it Rail by Rail

Till it is lost in Fleeces -

It deals Celestial Vail

To Stump, and Stack - and Stem -

A Summer’s empty Room -

Acres of Joints, where Harvests were,

Recordless, but for them -

It Ruffles Wrists of Posts

As Ankles of a Queen -

Then stills its Artisans - like Ghosts -

Denying they have been –

I love the piling up of nouns and descriptions, pointing to the outlining/transformation/disguising of our familiar surroundings that snow effects. I also love the penultimate stanza, elevating the humblest features of the rural landscape to notice, even celebration.

 I am restored by even a light dusting of snow to my childhood rapture at snowfall. (I remember vividly a preschool-less, pre-school experience where my neighbor friend and I made our mothers unearth all our winter regalia for a few flakes, which had mostly stopped falling by the time we toddled out in all our winterwear.) I wish for Greg even a single day of local skiing, preferably today, and for Anna, a day of fullhearted sledding before the season is over.

MKP for The Poplar Grove Muse