Soft.White.Snow.

It has been a while since the winter has been gripping Chicago with snow. There’s something otherworldly about these soft white flakes that make them strikingly picturesque. Perhaps it’s their transience. Thus, I stop to watch these miniscule crystals swirl in the air, as they quietly descend upon treetops and roofs, and I can’t help but marvel. Watching and absorbing all the snowfall, snow-covered scenery that surrounds my building makes the weekend more than perfect. Hightailing back into the warmth of the blanket, I grab myself a nice mug of hot chocolate, and take a seat by the window, waiting for the right thoughts to strike.

No wonder that snowfall has inspired boundless stanzas of poetry, and all I could think was Ralph Waldo Emerson’s ‘The Snow-Storm’.

     Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
     Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
     Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
     Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
     And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
     The sled and traveller stopped, the courier's feet
     Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
     Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
     In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

     Come see the north wind's masonry.
     Out of an unseen quarry evermore
     Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
     Curves his white bastions with projected roof
     Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
     Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
     So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
     For number or proportion. Mockingly,
     On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
     A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
     Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
     Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
     A tapering turret overtops the work.
     And when his hours are numbered, and the world
     Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
     Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
     To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
     Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
     The frolic architecture of the snow.