First Snow

Snow makes whiteness where it falls.

The bushes look like popcorn balls!

The places where I always play

Look like somewhere else today.

Marie Louise Allen

I can still hear my little sister, Polly, reciting this the Christmas she was about three years old. For several years, we had to write and/or recite a new poem at Christmas. This one is written in my mom's handwriting in the back of one of my old poetry books that I still often read.

I like snow. I like fresh, white snow. I like falling snow. I like fallen snow. For a while. But we've had the same dang snow on the ground since before Thanksgiving!! I'd really like it to melt off (as in warm up a bit for a while) and make way for new snow. Fresh snow.

A great book about winter is "Winter," by Rick Bass. I read it frequently; it's one of those you can and still enjoy. It's nonfiction and tells about his first winter in the Yaak Valley of northern Montana. Wonderful read.

Snow. Toe. Did you see my poet followers' fun rhymes in the comments? Thanks, one and all -- er, both. It is beginning to look less like a rotten, canned Vienna sausage and more like a swollen toe. Swell. It's getting well.