A heavy softness
of snow covers the morning, another few inches on the lawns. The streets, being warmer than the air, melt the snow clear. The trees are lacy filigree against the whiteness of the sky; all the branches are weighted with snow as with a very heavy hoarfrost. There is not much wind to disturb the beauty.
Everything we want we want too much of. Sometimes we want too much moderation. Sometimes we spill an excess of virtue like seed on desert sand.
Whatever you say or don't say, the snow continues to fall. The day continues to burn its candle. We have everything we need.
The snow does not let up and now it's starting to accumulate on the street faster than the street can melt it. The flag at the cemetery indicates nothing - not east nor west, not north or south. Only snow and more snow. In the country visibility is not much more than a quarter mile or so. I drive with care. The snow flies so thick I cannot sustain a thought; sometimes it is better to drive than to think.
I grew up in a place that had old cemeteries. And I grew up in a house with a cemetery next door.
This post conjured one of those almost-limbic-system recollections of wet snow on a grey day piled in little awnings on the top of tilted grave-stones stained a bit dark in places by the snow-melt.
Thanks for that.
Posted by: Lori Witzel | November 18, 2006 at 10:43 AM
Hi, Lori--
You grew up whistling past the cemetery?
Sometimes I joke that I spend half my life in old cemeteries: there is so much to be learned from the dead.
I am interested in the strength of your remembering, "almost limbic system reollections." I do think early on we develop these deep and lasting connections, a picture of the world and the way it is for us.
Thanks for your good words.
Posted by: Tom Montag | December 03, 2006 at 07:57 AM