First Snow

We have snow! It began yesterday at about 6 in the evening. It brings back all the memories of our first winter in northern B.C. That year the first snow occurred before Halloween and we didn’t see the ground again until March. I have never become inured to snow. In the past it has always been a delightful but temporary event. That first winter in the cabin, with every day a “snow day,” I was inspired to write daily about SNOW. This led to a chapbook called “Season of Snow,” and the poem “First Snow.” I don’t really consider myself a poet… but this poem just seemed to write itself. I entered it in the Terrace Public Library poetry contest held in conjunction with National Poetry Month. I won.

FIRST SNOW

It came quietly while I slept
In the cold dark hours of night;
A gathering of frozen droplets
High above the cabin and
Mountains near.
They took their time,
Transformations always do
But there were those
Impatient to begin
And if I had been looking
I would have seen them
Drifting softly to the ground
Ephemeral loners, one here, one there
Soft, white crystalline flakes
Disappearing on a stalk of dried grass
Out of sight on the shingle roof
It takes more than one
To change the world


And in a rush
They came
In drifts and flurries
To dust the trees with powder
Cover the frozen ground,
And the jumbled pile of cedar logs
Like icing on a cake.
When I opened my eyes
In the first dim light of morning
Everything had changed
Yesterday’s bare birch branches
Now sparkled, interwoven
Like a fine filigree lace
Evergreen boughs dipped low
Under the weight of October snow
Hiding the unsightly
From my eyes
Hushed in a blanket
Of pristine white,
Autumn turned to winter
In the space of a night

...P. L. Morningstar