Wednesday, December 05, 2007

It's Snowing!

I'm a big dork and I like to commemorate a lot of events by sending out a relevant poem. And since nothing says holiday cheer like Wallace Stevens, I've put "The Snowman" beneath the fold. I usually bore my friends with this on the first big snow of the season, but why not graduate to boring the whole blogosphere?

The Snowman
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Personally, winter in dc is my own sweet revenge against the myriad southerners who can survive the Vietnam-esque jungle weather of the other 8 months without a drop of sweat.

I love watching them all pull out ski parkas & wrap their heads in scarves when the mercury drops below 60. It is - how you say - delicioso!!