Snow, The Snow Man and deep thought

Guess what? It has been snowing with thick huge flakes floating down and settling but soon to be melted by rain and a few glancing rays of sunlight making it a top of 0.5 degrees. But it is also the perfect excuse to mention American poet Wallace Stevens and his poem, first published in 1921, called The Snow Man. US Commentator and Professor of things poetic Jay Keyser describes it as the best short poem in the English language. At the very least hopefully it will fire the imagination and get you pondering the contradictory nature of snow, mind and landscape. What does snow make you think of?

The Snow Man by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.