Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Snow in April

April 11 and it’s snowing. When I walked into the living room this morning, the roofs of the buildings across the park from me were white. I looked down, and the grass in the park was white. The snow is wet and sticking to the trees, outlining the branches and needles with white.

The temp is above freezing, so the snow isn’t staying on the streets and sidewalks. But riding to work, the weeds along the highway were coated and weighed down with snow. Snow is very forgiving. It covers the litter along the highway and the unraked lawns and makes shabby houses look quite wonderful.

As I write this, I remember the Jack London story, “To Build a Fire.” Snow and cold are not always forgiving. But in a city -- a northern city like the ones I live and work in – they are the way things are meant to be. There’s a sense of rightness when snow falls, even in April.

1 Comments:

Blogger Tallgeese said...

This may seem like a perverse question, but have you thought of writing a "nature" book, or perhaps "nature and dreams"? Given your materialist bent, but interest in poetry and SF, this could be quite a nice project. Kind of like Cronon's "Changes in the Land" or "Nature's Metropolis", but more northerly. :)

11:05 AM  

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