Mary Oliver #6- "First Snow"

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     I've only ever lived in warm places. Really hot places is the more appropriate term for what they are. And while the warmth has its perks, it makes the winter all the more magical. I think God has a special recipe for winter in the South. Because we are not often afforded the luxury of snow, the winter bites and snarls its teeth, chilling me to a spot so deep in my bones I din't even know it was there. But once a year, every year it seems, save for a few times when God forgot, he sends the first snow. It is peace embodied. There is something in the air that changes. You can smell it coming, as Lorelei Gilmore would say. Time moves slower and life pauses for just a moment. There is a stillness, and then it comes. In blanket it falls, or flakes at a time, but the magic is there all the same. I do not often get nostalgic or sentimental, but the snow stirs something in me that is hard to explain. Most snow storms, I weep. Not for any particular reason, other than that it is beautiful and pure and reminds me of God's creative kindness. It is magic embodied. Whenever it snows enough to cover the ground, I take a walk by myself in the evening. No phone, no sound, just stillness. Sometimes the screams of children litter the background, but mostly it is just me and God and the snow. I have such vivid memories of these walks over the years, and how my life has changed from snow to snow. Snow reminds me that God hasn't forgotten about me. That He can turn bitter biting pain into beauty. I love this line in the Mary Oliver poem: "walking out now into the silence and the light under the trees, and through the fields, feels like one". Then one she describes is the answer to the questions we have all been asking. I know what she means because I've seen the answer with my own two eyes, in a snow storm on Buckhorn Trail, another on University Drive. The first snow matters and bookmarks places in my life. The first snow is sweet and kind. And it answers the questions we didn't even know we were asking, especially this one: is peace possible? The answer is a soft spoken yes.


Fort Worth, Texas (2021)

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