Mother Nature is either confused or has quite the sense of humor- she has sent us several inches of snow today and I have the uncommon luxury of a free day.  Our blooming croci and just-about-to-open daffodils are buried and the forsythia looks as if it is trying to retract its blooms. The town is quiet and peaceful-I love it.  But of course Bill put the shovels away too quickly...

Leave it to my favorite Jane Kenyon to have just the right poem for this sort of day:


A thoughtful snow comes falling...
seems to hang in the air before
concluding that it must fall
here.  Huge aggregate flakes

alight on the muddy ruts
of March, and the standing
water that thaws by day
and freezes by night.

Venus is content to shine unseen
this evening, having risen serene
above springs, and false springs.
But I, restless after supper, pace

the long porch while the snow falls,
dodging the clothesline I won't
use until peonies send up red,
plump, irrepressible spears.