Snowy Snapshots

As I got out of my car at some point during the day, I looked up and saw a clearing in the wispy clouds about the Wasatch front. There was a peak so definitive that from far below I could see individual branches. They looked so perfect frosted in the snowy layers that clung to each pine strand and needle, with the clouds to frame the moment, the blue sky the backdrop, and a moment for me to pause and stare: until I realized I had to go to work. So I walked away from my picture, and its cast now in the brief respite of my mind.

The joy of poetry is that it can bring these eidetic images back to us. I am had the library looking over sample questions for the Praxis II that I'm taking on Saturday, when this poem was listed as part of a question, and it opened my former picture, once again for just a moment.

Robert Frost's Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening:

Whose woods these are I think I know. - A
His house is in the village, though; - A
He will not see me stopping here - B
To watch his woods fill up with snow. - A
My little horse must think it queer - B
To stop without a farmhouse near - B
Between the woods and frozen lake - C
The darkest evening of the year. - B
He gives his harness bells a shake - C
To ask if there is some mistake. - C
The only other sound's the sweep - D
Of easy wind and downy flake. - C
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. - D
But I have promises to keep, - D
And miles to go before I sleep, - D
And miles to go before I sleep. - D

Like Frost, I feel like I have miles to go before I sleep. Miles to go. And many virtues to acquire, patience to be developed, and hope to be embellished by the break in the clouds or in the village. Somehow the snow and clouds, their whiteness, cleans my air and let's me breathe in: small walking moments in the run of my life.