and the snow melts even as it falls

First thing yesterday morning, Monday, there was light snow that had fallen in the night covering the ground and resting on the top edges of twigs and branches and evergreen needles (though none of these really have edges) because there was no wind to speak of.  I like the old-fashioned, perhaps rural, feel of that last phrase.  “To speak of” is more lyrical to my mind and ear than “worth mentioning” or some equivalent phrase; in fact, “no wind” is something that we do often speak of, because wind is something that is very often part of our landscape and seascape here.  So there was no wind to speak of, which is worth mentioning, and the snow lay gently, even delicately, balanced on twigs and branches and needles and covering the ground.  It was a pretty sight.

About mid-morning it started to snow again, lightly but steadily, with just enough breeze to make it drift across the window at an attractive angle before it landed.  It was a wintry wonderland scene, even though I knew the temperature would rise and the snow would likely melt pretty soon. 

It reminded me of a long poem I wrote decades ago that contains the following lines:

and the snow melts even as it falls.

A friend, who was much older than I,

told me, It is always thus.

My good older friend always spoke that way, a relic perhaps of the home in the Edwardian English countryside she grew up in, or perhaps of her years of study at the Sorbonne, or both.  She was usually right, and we didn’t often disagree, certainly not when she said that.  I like that writing about the snowfall made me think of her, especially on this late winter night.

I also like to think of another “old good friend”, though I never did meet him; in fact, he died on March 4, 1963, two days after my 18^th birthday, and though his name was on my horizon back then, I had no real knowledge at that point of the profound impact he would have on my life and my writing.  He was, of course, the good physician, Dr. Williams, whose work I ended up exploring in some considerable detail and end up revisiting every now and again, such as when this showed up as yesterday’s Poem-A-Day.

Spring Storm
by William Carlos Williams

The sky has given over
its bitterness.
Out of the dark change
all day long
rain falls and falls
as if it would never end.
Still the snow keeps
its hold on the ground.
But water, water
from a thousand runnels!
It collects swiftly,
dappled with black
cuts a way for itself
through green ice in the gutters.
Drop after drop it falls
from the withered grass-stems
of the overhanging embankment.

I love the way he always attended to the physical details of the ordinary and that an early spring storm could bring his attention and his craft to the making of that fine small poem.

And then there was his friend Kreymborg’s tribute, which arrived in my inbox the day before, on the anniversary of Williams' death:

To W.C.W. M.D.
by Alfred Kreymborg

There has been
Another death.
This time
I bring it to you.
You are kind,
Brutal,
You know
How to lower
Bodies.
I ask only
That the rope
Isn't silk,
(Silk doesn't break)
Nor thread,
(Thread does.)
If it lifts
And lowers
Common things,
It will do.

That’s all really – we had a gentle snowfall, I was reminded of my good friend Anne as I wrote this post, and while I was getting ready to tap a couple of maple trees this afternoon, I took a photo of the small brook, running after our last “spring storm”. 

And, of course, there was a lovely pair of poems.