Out of the Bosom of the Air

Snow Flakes
Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

{Fine Art Photography by CountryDreaming on Etsy}

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession,

The troubled sky reveals

The grief it feels.



{Fine Art Photography from elgarboart on Etsy}



This is the poem of the air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

Now whispered and revealed

To wood and field.

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow



{Fine Art Photography by EyePoetryPhotography on Etsy}

 The skies delivered winter whites today, ready or not.

The first snow of the season usually consists of random tufts drifting down creeping in on kitten feet. Not so today. It is as if the skies were torn open and the clouds were shook loose of their heavy wet down. It looks a lot like that first picture out my window.



{'down comes the soft silent snow' snowflake simple truth pendant available on Etsy}

 When I was a teacher, you could always tell when it was about to snow. The kids were a great barometer. So on the first snowfall I would always abandon what I had planned for the day and focus on the snow. That way we could shift our focus to what they were thinking about anyway and maybe still learn a thing or two.

I would get out the white copy paper and tell them to come armed with their scissors. We would fold and snip and make a flurry of our own in the classroom (I am sure the janitor loved me ;-). Then we would take our favorites and afix them to a large piece of colored construction paper and write poems dedicated to snow. I loved that class activity. And even though I was teaching 7th graders, they really immersed themselves in the simple beauty of taking a plain piece of paper and carving it into life.


{'let it snow' snowman simple truth pendant available on Etsy}

 While I am not a huge fan of the many months of cold and ice and deep dark that the winter brings, I do celebrate the beauty of this day. But who knows? Tomorrow it could be 50 degrees and this could all be gone. Or it may not leave until April. Either way, I know that winter will break in the spring and I will be so much more grateful for the color to return to the earth because of this blanket of white. I think I will go and make some snowflakes with my kids tonight while I enjoy a big mug of hot cocoa with peppermint infused whipped cream. But only six-sided snowflakes.