Your snow poems

Wheee.............!!!

I may be brave
But I'm nobody's fool
I won't venture out
Without the right tool

I put on four Yokohama iceGUARD IG20's on the Miata

http://www.wheels.ca/Article%20Category/article/33060

You dance just like a ballerina
in the air, so cold.
At times, you're very shy and timid,
at other times, you're bold.

Dressed up in your crystal costume,
molded in symmetry.
Your design is like no other.
Unique, I must agree.

You play your part so gracefully
without making a sound,
whether you are pirouetting
or blanketing the ground.

You act so very innocent
when you're a solo flake.
Combined with others of your ilk,
all the rules, you break.

At spring's first hint, you shed your mask
and end the masquerade.
You quickly run off and forsake
the wonder that you made.

Next winter, you'll appear again,
your charm will mesmerize.
And you'll make me forget that you're
a rain drop in disguise.

(William Tozzi)

Snow snow rain snow rain
Now the rivers are flooding
Grab a sandbag, pal

I had to memorize a substantial chunk of Whittier's "Snow Bound" in English class and can still recite the opening lines from memory:

The sun that brief December day

Rose cheerless over hills of gray,

And, darkly circled, gave at noon

A sadder light than waning moon.

Slow tracing down the thickening sky

Its mute and ominous prophecy,

A portent seeming less than threat,

It sank from sight before it set.

A chill no coat, however stout,

Of homespun stuff could quite shut out,

A hard, dull bitterness of cold,

That checked, mid-vein, the circling race

Of life-blood in the sharpened face,

The coming of the snow-storm told.

Shoveling Snow With Buddha

In the usual iconography of the temple or the local Wok
you would never see him doing such a thing,
tossing the dry snow over a mountain
of his bare, round shoulder,
his hair tied in a knot,
a model of concentration.

Sitting is more his speed, if that is the word
for what he does, or does not do.

Even the season is wrong for him.
In all his manifestations, is it not warm or slightly humid?
Is this not implied by his serene expression,
that smile so wide it wraps itself around the waist of the universe?

But here we are, working our way down the driveway,
one shovelful at a time.
We toss the light powder into the clear air.
We feel the cold mist on our faces.
And with every heave we disappear
and become lost to each other
in these sudden clouds of our own making,
these fountain-bursts of snow.

This is so much better than a sermon in church,
I say out loud, but Buddha keeps on shoveling.
This is the true religion, the religion of snow,
and sunlight and winter geese barking in the sky,
I say, but he is too busy to hear me.

He has thrown himself into shoveling snow
as if it were the purpose of existence,
as if the sign of a perfect life were a clear driveway
you could back the car down easily
and drive off into the vanities of the world
with a broken heater fan and a song on the radio.

All morning long we work side by side,
me with my commentary
and he inside his generous pocket of silence,
until the hour is nearly noon
and the snow is piled high all around us;
then, I hear him speak.

After this, he asks,
can we go inside and play cards?

Certainly, I reply, and I will heat some milk
and bring cups of hot chocolate to the table
while you shuffle the deck.
and our boots stand dripping by the door.

Aaah, says the Buddha, lifting his eyes
and leaning for a moment on his shovel
before he drives the thin blade again
deep into the glittering white snow.

Billy Collins