After the busy-ness of summer and the sweet but fleeting glory of fall, the first snow of the season is a time to take a beat and to shift gears into a slower and sometimes claustrophobic time of year. The closed-in feeling will come later when the snow is dirtied by sand and salt, freeze and thaw, and has long outstayed its welcome. However, the first snowfall?—ahhh!
First Snow Meditation
Watching the first snow of the season, (well before Thanksgiving)
waxing into sleet, it’s time to hit pause, to cancel the usual Sunday
labors and offices and to cook up a mess of bacon and eggs.
Watching the field change its clothing from brown to white,
watching the great down arrow of snow falling from sky, it’s time
to break from morning routine and brew a third cup of coffee.
The way everything seems to slowly disappear within the snow,
how it somehow settles out even regardless of what’s below,
reminds me of the first time I really found a still point in mind.
The memory makes me want to stay, stay silent, unmoving,
just sitting at my window with a coffee mug steaming in hand
and to feel the nothingness of the snow mirrored within me.
But ahhh—if only moments of grace outlasted their moment.
The furnace fan kicks on again, a semi-truck gears down for the hill,
and an old song begins to play over and over inside my head.
