By Billy Collins
Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,
its white flag waving over everything,
the landscape vanished,
not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,
and beyond these windows
the government buildings smothered,
schools and libraries buried, the post office lost
under the noiseless drift,
the paths of trains softly blocked,
the world fallen under this falling.
In a while I will put on some boots
and step out like someone walking in water,
and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,
and I will shake a laden branch,
sending a cold shower down on us both.
But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,
a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.
I will make a pot of tea
and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,
as glad as anyone to hear the news
that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,
the Ding-Dong School, closed,
the All Aboard Children's School, closed,
the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,
along with -- some will be delighted to hear --
the Toadstool School, the Little School,
Little Sparrows Nursery School,
Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School,
the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,
and -- clap your hands -- the Peanuts Play School.
So this is where the children hide all day,
These are the nests where they letter and draw,
where they put on their bright miniature jackets,
all darting and climbing and sliding,
all but the few girls whispering by the fence.
And now I am listening hard
in the grandiose silence of the snow,
trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,
what riot is afoot,
which small queen is about to be brought down.
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Despite getting almost no snow, we had a snow day on Wednesday -- or rather an ice day, since it was sleeting before dawn and a lot of people couldn't get their car windows and sidewalks clear enough to get out of their neighborhoods in the early morning. Adam and I both slept in (he has had a cold, so he probably needed a morning to sleep late) and Paul worked from home. It was thus a fairly uneventful morning.
Daniel W came over after we had eggwiches for lunch, and since Vudu now has Thor: The Dark World available and Adam hadn't seen it, we watched that. I don't think I like it quite as much as the first one but it's still enjoyable, particularly when Hiddleston and Hemsworth are both onscreen. Nashville is so soapy it makes me sneeze but I still like the music. Here are a few Mount Vernon outbuilding pics from last month:
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