No, no ... I'm not reporting that we've had snow here in Ohio ... we've had some sudden swings in weather recently ... but nothing that drastic (I'm keeping my fingers crossed, though).
Actually, I guess I am reporting, after a fashion ... reporting on some childhood memories which come rolling back to me on a fairly regular basis.
Besides, "First Snow" also happens to be one of my favorite poems ... along with "Hollyhocks," "Chance of Rain" ... and a few others.
But I digress.
I don't know exactly which hillside Grandma and I were on. I don't know where we were going. Memories become blurred as to certain details.
I do remember the moment, though, when a sudden swirl of huge, fluffy snowflakes descended on us. They were, indeed, like flying feathers.
I hadn't seen anything like them in my whole young life.
The poem:
FIRST SNOW
I watch them
sliding slowly
on my windowpane,
harbingers
come to warn me
of impending winter,
stirring again
that memory
of plucked feathers,
as she called them,
swiftly enveloping
Grandma and me
on a hillside path.
I can still taste
that delicious
melting cold,
still hear her
laughing with me,
that great
explosion of joy.
©
2005("First Snow" received a first-place award in a Poets' Study Club contest, was later published in The Christian Science Monitor, and is now part of Wood Smoke, scheduled to be published later this year)
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Today's word:
harbingersAfterthoughts ... in response to your comments:
You are so right, Helen ... that kind of snow does plant memories which last forever. I'm still reminded of that "first snow" ... how the flakes did appear to be feathers flying about us ... and I think of that early adventure with almost every snow we have ... but when the flakes tend toward the fluffy side, I'm really whisked back to that hillside scene. I'm glad, too, that your day got off to a good start.
1 comment:
Your poem was a very pleasant surprise to wake up to this morning. When my children and I lived in the Basque area of Spain at the foothills of the Pyrenees, it snowed big white feathers as well. My daughter and I loved it. You could stick out your tongue and catch them. She and I were trying to explain just that phenomenon at my Easter gathering here in Miami this year. They thought it only happened in the movies. My daughter...then twelve, remembered it exactly and when she told it, I could feel the snowflakes on my tongue and in my hair--as when I read your poem. That type of snow doesn't last long when it hits the ground, but the vivid memory of each feathery snowflake lasts a lifetime.
When I read your poem I found it so picturesque and full of feelings of delight and love. Another good start to my day.
Thank you! Helen
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