quote for today

all is white here. i hate being the first to step into the snow or drive over untracked parts. snow feels so impossibly permanent when it's on the ground but, at least around here, barely lasts through the day most times. Jared Carter Poetry :: Poems :: "Snow" Snow by Jared Carter. First published in Poetry. Copyright ©1999 and 2003 by the Modern Poetry Association. At every hand there are moments we cannot quite grasp or understand. Free to decide, to interpret, we watch rain streaking down the window, the drain emptying, leaves blown by a cold wind. At least we sense a continuity in such falling away. But not with snow. It is forgetfulness, what does not know, has nothing to remember in the first place. Its purpose is to cover, to leave no trace of anything. Whatever was there before— the worn broom leaned against the door and almost buried now, the pile of brick, the bushel basket filling up with thick, gathering whiteness, half sunk in a drift— all these things are lost in the slow sift of the snow's falling. Now someone asks if you can remember—such a simple task— the time before you were born. Of course you cannot, nor can I. Snow is the horse that would never dream of running away, that plods on, pulling the empty sleigh while the tracks behind it fill, and soon everything is smooth again. No moon, no stars, to guide your way. No light. Climb up, get in. Be drawn into the night.