Snow Storm…

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…