Cool and Composed -At the West End Gallery, Corning NY
The first dusting of snow fell last night. Just a small amount, most likely to be gone later this morning. But enough to send the message that the feel of winter with snow and its accompanying stillness would soon be here to stay. Or at least on a more regular basis.
With the vagaries of this year’s warmth and wetness, it might be more rain and ice than snow this season. Or big snowfalls followed by quick thaws that swell the rivers.
I personally hope for snow. Not so much that my time is spent trying to keep our long driveways open and begins to make me resent the imposition. No, not snow measured in feet but enough that the white blankets the ground and coats the limbs and trunks of the forest, creating a muffling effect that creates an almost Zen-like stillness.
It’s easy in the vacuum of this snowy silence to lose one’s sense of busyness and to just stop to listen to the nothing. The creaking of a tree. The plink plink of from the drip of melting snow from a tree limb. The gentle gurgle of the creek and the rustle of a few remaining leaves as the breeze moves through them.
This brings to mind a Wallace Stevens poem, The Snow Man. He pretty much sums up what I have been trying to describe. It certainly works for this snow man. Here’s reading of it from Tom O’Bedlam.
Redtree Times 