This is the poem of the air...

Yesterday was rain.  Today is snow.  Impossibly fluffy, huge snowflakes drifting by my window.  It looks so calm and peaceful, yet my school district is the only one currently open today--everyone else in the county is closed as the roads are treacherous with ice underneath the snow.  Here's a peek out my front door this morning:

Something rather amazing happened this morning.  You might recall that yesterday I got my first look at 'my' backyard owl.  Today, I was waiting for my husband to return from the gas station and I was standing in my front room looking out at all the snow when what to my wondering eyes should appear but this fine fellow!  To say I was in shock was an understatement.  And of course I didn't have my camera handy, because I live in the middle of a large city and really don't expect to see a handsome fox come strolling through my front yard!  But he was beautiful and looked just like this one.  What an amazing way to start the morning!  Welcome to my forest abode...owls, foxes, what will arrive tomorrow morning? Stay tuned!

Isn't this just a lovely poem?  It's a little sad, I admit, but try reading it aloud--this is the poem of the Air, slowly in silent syllables recorded...  Longfellow must have written this poem on a day much like today..silent and soft and slow descends the snow.  A beautiful day, a beautiful poem, a beautiful fox--life is a gift, isn't it?

Snow Flakes

by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the Air,

Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

Silent, and soft, and slow

Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

In the white countenance confession,

The troubled sky reveals

The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the Air,

Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

Now whispered and revealed

To wood and field.