ProetryPlace Blog 37

SNOW

    Some of the country is getting a lot of winter this winter, Midwestern and Northeastern states buried under record snowfalls. Here in Georgia, the best I can report is eight flurries floating in the frigid breeze late last night, squeezed from the saturated air by sub-freezing temperatures.

    It is now more than twenty years since the Storm of the Century blanketed most of the southeastern United States with heavy, wet, late-season snow. For three days in mid-March, 1993, traffic snarled everywhere. Automobiles and truck transports were stranded on snow-bound interstates for days while the overwhelmed clearing crews and equipment struggled to restore even partial traffic flow. Shelves at supermarkets were stripped of bread and milk, even if one somehow managed to get to the store. There was little else to do but sit back by the fire and enjoy it.

    Snow amounting to more than a dusting is somewhat rare in Georgia; ice storms can be even more devastating. Several years back, the heavy coatings of ice brought down tree branches and power lines, leaving us without electric power, telephone or, horror of horrors, cable television for five days.

     It has been several years since I had to get out one of the snow shovels we kept when we moved south from Wisconsin over thirty years ago. But with all the heavy snowfalls now being reported elsewhere this year, I suppose I ought to try to find one in case I need it before spring. We probably need to stick a loaf or two of bread in the freezer too and make sure the generator we own now is working.

    When I think of Wisconsin, the first thing that comes to mind is snow. It’s not that I haven’t experienced the wonders of all the seasons in the state of my birth and upbringing. But the winters, somehow are the most memorable, and those memories are overridden by the essence of snow.

     I can personally attest to the fact that snow can come to Wisconsin anytime from early October through late April, a period of seven months. I have heard it reported that it has snowed every month of the year in that northern state, and though I have no official confirmation, I believe this to be true.

    The character of snow and one’s personal response to it depend on many things—one’s age, the month of the year and how the balance of one’s life is affected by it, for example. As a middle-aged adult, my reaction to snow was less delight than disgust. While my wife sat inside and viewed the hushed white scene outdoors, I would be required to don heavy sweaters or jackets in the dark of night or early morning to shovel the stuff from my sidewalk and driveway, often time after arduous time. But for my children, snow meant sledding, snowmen, defending one’s snow-fort with barrages of snowballs and, best of all, no school today.

    The most memorable snow of my lifetime occurred during the closing days of January, 1947 when two feet or more accumulated over a three day period and drifted into piles high enough to tunnel through. I was a young teen living in Milwaukee and in spite of the hard labor of constant shoveling that I, my dad and my older brother did, the snow was a marvel to me. Never before had I experienced such snow, nor have I ever since. Nothing else mattered. The snow dominated everything. No streetcars or motor vehicles ran in the street that pedestrians tried in vain to traverse in hip-deep snow. Businesses and institutions closed. The humdrum routine of life was turned ass over teakettle—a nightmare for some, for me a winter wonderland I shall never forget.

    Here is one of the “snow” poems from my book, Another Season Spent, entitled:

The Ages of Snow

In frigid January

light breezes swirl the snow.

Fluffy, frivolous and airy

in temperatures of five below

it drifts to pile at fences

before the winds of night—

then amazes all our senses

with the new aurora’s light.

In the slow return of morning

it lies quiet on the ground,

its stillness makes no warning

as it muffles every sound.

Bestowing calm and wonderment

it spreads soft beneath our sight;

the landscape flows mellifluent

all over hushed and white.

March brings sticky snowfalls.

They drop heavy and profoundly—

good packing for hard snowballs,

and snowmen stacked rotundly.

Children try to catch snow’s coldness

on open palm and lifted face

they watch the crystal essence

morph into a liquid trace.

Groaning loudly under foot or ski

snow complies to hard compaction

warning town-folk to drive carefully

to be wary of uncertain traction.

Then shoveling is a murderous thing

torturing will and sacroiliac,

relieved but by thoughts that joyous spring

will soon come rushing warmly back.

Richard Allen Anderson

January 2014

http://richardandersonblogs.blogspot.com

Another Season Spent is available at Amazon.com in print or Kindle versions and discount paperback from Barnes and Noble or Vabella Publishing.