The Rare Moment When You Hear the Snow

On a road trip, to my dear friend Linda's new Pocono home, The Gap in the Clouds, I was inspired by the intensely moving and peacefully falling snow.  Nature has taught me how we are slowed by the intense heat and how we are slowed by the intense cold, and it is in those moments we should reflect, feel, and express. I felt comforted in the high mountains, while being blanketed in white, all allowing me to understand my past, devour my present, and invite my future.

The Rare Moment When You Hear the Snow

The equanimity of snow falling, cushioning,
lying laden on leaning branches--
a light blanket of white, a roundness of beauty,
amorphous shapes erasing sharp edges, all
poised on a January morning marching
and congregating on the roof tops of lives.

As shadows are rotating over the western horizon,
there is the beginning of a childhood—at day’s end,
her braided head rests on her mother’s lap, a working
hand smooths the winter’s cold from her face,
stories pass at fire side, photo albums, and wine are
traded from mouth to memory; traditional
voices enfold and hold images in the child’s mind as sleepy
eyes slip away and dreams curl into a rare journey.

Over time and outside, our hard edges are erased
exquisitely as the hard land is covered. Silent
pressure inviting tranquility to the living,
slowing the memory of a life’s journey
all falling in purifying flakes;
each individual crystalline dance
mixed into a spiritual tone of reminiscence.

In a snow storm, images exist in the memory of
a woman, once sleeping in a lap wrapped
in the warm whispers of history.
The history of war and loss and love,
the purity of white from blood.
The covering of pallor over death;
the quietude of colorless from hollow words.
The mission of love etched into hearts;
the illustrious birth of a yet another life.

In a spontaneous moment of difficulty,
in a white water of growth, we
live in the falling and rising shadows of sun
and the crisp alabaster snow-- all
swell in the shimmering patina of life--
encompassed in the protective powers of peace.