Here we are in the Frozen Mountaintops and it’s the beginning of December and kids are grouching because there’s no snow.
Let me make my position on this lack of snow clear: I don’t mind. At all. Not even a little.
But there are kids out there, running through the halls of this school in which I teach and through the house in which I live, who are SUPER EAGER for the snow that falls from the clouds to cover the mountains (as opposed to the snow that comes out of the blower machines and covers a few runs at Park City because it’s not the same).
So, for their benefit, here is a piece of utter loveliness from Mary Oliver, who has feelings about snow:
“November” by Mary Oliver
The snow
began slowly,
a soft and easy
sprinkling
of flakes, then clouds of flakes
in the baskets of the wind
and the branches
of the trees —
oh, so pretty.
We walked
through the growing stillness,
as the flakes
prickled the path,
then covered it,
then deepened
as in curds and drifts,
as the wind grew stronger,
shaping its work
less delicately,
taking greater steps
over the hills
and through the trees
until, finally,
we were cold,
and far from home.
We turned
and followed our long shadows back
to the house,
stamped our feet,
went inside, and shut the door.
Through the window
we could see
how far away it was to the gates of April.
Let the fire now
put on its red hat
and sing to us.