I'm sitting in my Denver office watching the snow begin to coat the fields around me. I made it into work just as the snow started whisping around and now it is coming down the way snow is supposed to. So, I thought I'd share these thoughts on a snow day from a few years back.
Snow Day
If I knew how to paint
I think I’d know how a painter feels
in front of an empty canvass
fluffing the bristles and imagining.
My empty canvass is a field,
freshly blanketed with 11 inches of spring snow
so wet you could wring it like a wash cloth.
I know its 11 inches. I measured
I know it’s soggy. I shoveled.
I can only imagine how the artist must feel.
A sculptor uncovers what’s hidden in stone.
A painter transforms empty space into cobalt blue
and burnt-umber reflections of reality.
The kids and I will turn this blank canvass
into a snow fort, a snowman family
and a half dozen snow angels.
Then as this winter white
forms puddles on the floor
we sip cocoa with marshmallows,
like tiny snowballs, melting too soon.
It’s a snow day and oh, the possibilities.
Jeff Hildebrandt © 2005
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Well down here in south Texas we don't know much about snow days but the pictures always look lovely.
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