Snowfall Mystery

Snow--doesn't fall--it flits and flees and flies;

it scurries and flurries.

Fairy flakes, unbound by gravity,

fly upwards as easily as down or across.

Borne on the whimsical whim of the winds;

they change direction a thousand times.

Chasing aroud, between buildings;

caught in a million vortices and eddies,

Playing every child's game for ages known:

tag; hide-and-seek; king of the hill.

Or, caught by nighttime city lights,

transform into a thousand sparks and fireflies,

Before reluctantly, softly, settling onto the hills, the cities,

your nose.

It doesn't snow where we live. In fact, we detest being cold, and we have a 'deal' with snow: it does not visit us, and we do not visit it! (LOL)

The snow described in this poem was only my second time seeing an active snowfall, and my first as an adult. It was an early December trip to Reno, Nevada with a bowling league I was on at the time. It began to snow around midnight, and I just had to go for a walk around the block for the experience.

As a child, I witnessed a full-on blizzard when we were visiting relatives in New Bedford, Massachusetts. It was the night before we were due to fly home, and my parents were afraid the airport would be snowed in. People's cars were stuck in the middles of intersections.

I went outdoors to experience that snowfall--my first ever. Wow! Was I surprised when it was slippery! In my excitement, I dashed out onto my aunt's porch, and my feet lost traction; I landed on my backside and slid, seated, all the way to the porch railing!

I was further surprised on going all the way outside, and around the corner of her apartment, to find that the stuff that seemed so soft and fluffy stung like being sandblasted when driven by strong storm winds!

The snowfall that inspired this poem was very different; the snowfall in the photo is more like the one I experienced as a child.

This is an older poem. I first wrote it back in December of 1997, soon after my Reno trip, and I made a minor edit in 2010.