May Sarton: "Snow Fall"

 

With no wind blowing

It sifts gently down,
Enclosing my world in
A cool white down,
A tenderness of snowing.

It falls and falls like sleep
Till wakeful eyes can close
On all the waste and loss
As peace comes in and flows,
Snow-dreaming what I keep.

Silence assumes the air
And the five senses all
Are wafted on the fall
To somewhere magical
Beyond hope and despair.

There is nothing to do
But drift now, more or less
On some great lovingness,
On something that does bless,
The silent, tender snow.

"Snow Fall" by May Sarton, from Collected Poems: 1930-1993. © W.W. Norton & Company, 1992.

Photography credit: Paul Gutelius, 2006 (originally black and white).