There is a reason that so many poems have been written about snow…It is hard to describe so well in any other way…
Snow
Billy Collins
I cannot help noticing how this slow Monk solo
seems to go somehow
with the snow
that is coming down this morning,
*
how the notes and the spaces accompany
its easy falling
on the geometry of the ground,
on the flagstone path,
the slanted roof,
and the angles of the split-rail fence
*
as if he had imagined a winter scene
as he sat at the piano
late one night at the Five Spot
playing “Ruby, My Dear.”
*
Then again, it’s the kind of song
that would go easily with rain
or a tumult of leaves,
*
and for that matter it’s a snow
that could attend
an adagio for strings,
the best of the Ronettes,
or George Thorogood and the Destroyers.
*
It falls so indifferently
into the spacious white parlor of the world,
if I were sitting here reading
*
in silence,
reading the morning paper
pr reading Being and Nothingness,
not even letting the spoon
touch the inside of the cup,
I have a feeling
the snow would even go perfectly with that.
After reading this poem I had to discover Thelonious Monk playing “Ruby, My Dear”. It is as dreamy as the falling snow…
