Winter-Time

The first winter snow arrived yesterday as a guest, and I am an ambivalent hostess. This visitor has its charms, but I am hoping it won’t stay for long. It has made the landscape look picturesque, like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. But if it overstays its welcome it will quickly lose all appeal for me. I am now a tense winter driver, because of my Near Death Experience of last year. And I am an even tenser Mother Of A Teenage Winter Driver. And then there’s the constant battle of the Slush vs. Clean Kitchen Floor, instigated by my children and dog. (Big sigh.) I’ll quit complaining now. I have lived in the mid-west for most of my life, so I should be used to this.

The first snowfall is a poem-worthy event. And as I read this jewel by Robert Louis Stevenson, I thank the good Lord for a heated home, but I long for a nurse who will “wrap me in my comforter and cap.”
Winter-Time
Late lies the wintry sun a-bed,
A frosty, fiery sleepy-head;
Blinks but an hour or two; and then,
A blood-red orange, sets again.

Before the stars have left the skies,
At morning in the dark I rise;
And shivering in my nakedness,
By the cold candle, bathe and dress.

Close by the jolly fire I sit
To warm my frozen bones a bit;
Or with a reindeer-sled, explore
The colder countries round the door.

When to go out, my nurse doth wrap
Me in my comforter and cap;
The cold wind burns my face, and blows
Its frosty pepper up my nose.

Black are my steps on silver sod;
Thick blows my frosty breath abroad;
And tree and house, and hill and lake,
Are frosted like a wedding-cake.