I tell myself that under the ground the small green seeds of flowers are sprouting, They begin folded like embryos, But they are unfolding now, in the dark, getting ready for the long push to the light. a month from now there will be the green smell in the air. Already we have it sometimes, carried on the wind. A month from now there will be daffodills, and snowdrops, and the palest green of still infolded maple leaves.It will be mud season.
Not yet though. Today it is snowing again. Been snowing all day, The sky is white, the ground is white. You would think it would be bright out but this white is another species of dark. You cannot see far.

I have been thinking of these two poems. New England poets these-- they both certainly knew the feel of snow underfoot, nose pinching cold that stings the lungs, and cold wet and up your sleeves. The icy coating on mittens has not changed in a hundred years, or a thousand.Nor has grief, and love, and anger-- which is what the poems are really about of course.


After great pain a formal feeling comes--
The nerves sit ceremonious like tombs;
The stiff Heart questions--was it He that bore?
And yesterday--or centuries before?

The feet, mechanical, go round
A wooden way
Of ground, or air, or ought,
Regardless grown,
A quartz contentment, like a stone.

This is the hour of lead
Remembered if outlived,
As freezing persons recollect the snow--
First chill, then stupor, then the letting go.

That is Emily Dickinson of course. Untitled, like many of hers.