Monday, December 20, 2010

Snow Dust

(Photo by KPA)

I had meant to title this blog "a dusting of snow." Just to make sure of the terminology, and thanks to a Google search, I found this:

Dust of Snow
By Robert Frost

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Here's what one commentator (from the link above) says about the poem:
A beautiful and deeply ambiguous poem. The image of the act of nature reviving the poet's spirit is lovely but hardly serene. Crows are noisy and, because of their tendency to eat carrion, are thought in literature and mythology to forecast death. The hemlock bush (not the tree) is poisonous and, of course, dust is what we all return to. So death hovers here. Yet the poet's day is saved and so is ours. It is interesting the the New York subway system has chosen to put this poem on a poster in many cars this winter.