It's white here, very white, which makes a pleasing change from grey - so long as you are indoors or outdoors throwing snowballs, on a tobogan or whizzing stones or sticks to zing across a frozen pond. The peripetetic tabby has decided cosy is better and is curled up in the soup bowl he's made in our fluffy white bean bag.
It was snowing when I went to bed last night, when I woke and is still going. We say it's raining cats and dogs but what's the equivalent for snow-zebras and cotton balls? I'm now wondering how cats and dogs have any connection with rain...
It feels so soft and so eerily quiet from the comfort of my Lazboy armchair. Yet, when it rains, there seems to be extra noise, splashing of puddles, tyres on the road, beating on the window pane, tapping on the roof.
I went out early, to help the birds, by scraping a thick layer, like the top of a Victoria Sandwich, off the bird bath and filling that with hot water. And, whilst the smaller birds and Starlings could perch and eat from the seed holder, the blackbird could not. So I made a clearing in the snow down to grass level, sprinkled bird seed and covered it with a garden chair and table to stop the snow piling up over it again. The Blackbirds and the pigeon are now happier. Or is that me? I've done a good deed today - well, two, if you count the cat. But then the cat really made the decision, as cats do. I tried putting him out an hour ago and he just sat at the door looking at me as snow piled on his back.
The snow accentuates every shape. The summer recliner now has eight inch thick arms. The crinkle edge of the garage roof stands out, black against white. An original snow moulding within the garden chair has slipped down the back and over its seat, like the limp clock in a Dali picture. Small hillocks started to build early on the tops of the seed and nut feeders. I have been wondering how pointed these could become. Suddenly I decided to take a picture fearing imminent collapse. Two seconds later, it happened. In the same way that I wake a minute before the alarm clock actually goes off. Who said we know time and order?
Snow in London is always exciting, a marvel, new, a shock. Despite weather predictions we still look out the window and draw breath, call out "its snowing"! No matter how old we get, we are released for a moment from the weight of "being adult". Here is something different from that which we expect each day - "more of the same" as if we hunger relief from our complacency. The unexpected makes us feel alive, whether or not it is welcome.
Above all this, we can't stop it snowing. A pain to have to travel in but beauty and something beyond ourselves or our making and, in that way a release from that responsibility. I tread out now, crunching underfoot, to see daylight dim and the street lights glow against the snow.
London Snow
ReplyDeleteWhen men were all asleep the snow came flying,
In large white flakes falling on the city brown,
Stealthily and perpetually settling and loosely lying,
Hushing the latest traffic of the drowsy town;
Deadening, muffling, stifling its murmurs failing;
Lazily and incessantly floating down and down:
Silently sifting and veiling road, roof and railing;
Hiding difference, making unevenness even,
Into angles and crevices softly drifting and sailing.
All night it fell, and when full inches seven
It lay in the depth of its uncompacted lightness,
The clouds blew off from a high and frosty heaven;
And all woke earlier for the unaccustomed brightness
Of the winter dawning, the strange unheavenly glare:
The eye marvelled--marvelled at the dazzling whiteness;
The ear hearkened to the stillness of the solemn air;
No sound of wheel rumbling nor of foot falling,
And the busy morning cries came thin and spare.
Then boys I heard, as they went to school, calling,
They gathered up the crystal manna to freeze
Their tongues with tasting, their hands with snowballing;
Or rioted in a drift, plunging up to the knees;
Or peering up from under the white-mossed wonder,
"O look at the trees!" they cried, "O look at the trees!"
With lessened load a few carts creak and blunder,
Following along the white deserted way,
A country company long dispersed asunder:
When now already the sun, in pale display
Standing by Paul's high dome, spread forth below
His sparkling beams, and awoke the stir of the day.
For now doors open, and war is waged with the snow;
And trains of sombre men, past tale of number,
Tread long brown paths, as toward their toil they go:
But even for them awhile no cares encumber
Their minds diverted; the daily word is unspoken,
The daily thoughts of labour and sorrow slumber
At the sight of the beauty that greets them, for the charm they have broken.
Robert Bridges