The Snow Man

I must confess, that this blog, at least the title, is highly inspired by the poetry of Wallace Stevens and especially his poem, "The Snow Man." His birthday is today, October 2nd. In tribute to him and all the hours and hours of reflection and insight he has given me, I share one of his greatest poems:

The Snow Man

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the 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.

-- Wallace Stevens