Snow From Last Winter

Astoria Park, Queens, NY

As another has observed: the snow falls from a sky the color of lead, yet is pure white. It comes in a storm, yet it falls often gently, meekly, peacefully... it comes as a storm, yet its effect is to silence and deaden. A big snow storm is unique amongst our Earth's weather events, engaging our senses in suddenly strange ways. Consider this poet's words, deliberately slow and stilted, as though to remind us of the first slow, plodding footsteps one takes through fresh snow:

...all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled — marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.