Sounds of Winter
Sounds of winter too,
Sunshine upon the mountains- many a distant strain.
From cheery railroad train- from nearer field, barn and house,
The Whispering air – even the mute crops, garner’d apples, corn,
Children’s and women’s tones-rhythm of many a farmer and of flail,
An old man’s garrulous lips among the rest, Think not we give out yet,
Forth from these snowy hairs we keep up yet the lilt.
Leaves of Grass- Walt Whitman
Here it is almost mid February and old Jack Frost has really spared us through the usually brutal month of January. Janus the two-faced G-d of beginnings and spatiality blessed us with above average temperatures in that usually cursed month of cold.
But now the vicious tongue of old man winter has lashed out with an almost record amount of those white fluffy crystals. The roads, the sidewalks, the roofs, and those lonely forlorn autos, left to the vagaries of nature, have been submerged under a white blanket. The curbs are hidden as with the small rocks and rolling slopes of the once greenish lawns. Winter and all of its fearsome consequences is back with a vengeance.
So I was dragooned into the family responsibility of plowing and shoveling out the driveway, sweeping off the car, and making sure it would start up and move. All was accomplished in 2 hours and by 12 noon I was back in my warm house, stripped to the bare bone and safely ensconced in a hot shower.
Now it is later in the day and the wicked winds sweeping across the Hudson have started to blow the powdery snows into new drifts. It actually is still snowing here in the Hudson Valley and though the brunt of the storm seems past, it looks like we will absorb another 2-3 inches before it is all over.
Of course since this is Lincoln’s 197th Birthday, and he stated in 1859 “It is said an Eastern monarch once charged his wise men to invent him a sentence, to be ever in view, and which should be true and appropriate in all times and situations. They presented him the words: ‘And this, too, shall pass away.’ How much it expresses.”
Meanwhile it is back to the Winter Olympics and the travails of Michelle Kwan and the soapbox opera life of demigod Bodie Miller. It is fitting that just in time for these frolicking winter games, the season has returned to its natural inclinations.
Richard J. Garfunkel
Another Winter of Discontent Arrives
February 12, 2006