I suppose I’d better take some pictures. It could be
the last snow of the year. Or for ever, for that matter.
Which reminds me of the advice of a poet
(whose name, I’m sorry, I do not recall)
that went something like this:
See everything as if for the first time,
or for the last.
Remembering that woke me up.
See? Right here! It could be the last time!
Look how the scene, as always, is perfect.
Seeing throws me right into things, sharpens the real,
brings it all into focus. Right here. Right now.
But the tricky thing I’ve noticed about the present
is that it holds the past as well, and dreams and wishes
for the future, and you embroider them with colored threads
and you get lost in the picture and have to wake up
all over again.
But sometimes the beauty of it, when you do truly see,
is so poignant that it makes you make up songs of celebration.
You can’t help it. It‘s love at first sight when you first see.
Then there are the ordinary things -the wallpaper, the shoe – suddenly transformed into treasures, with their imprints
of jeweled hours and dear faces, seen as if you would never
see them ever again.
The snow today was beautiful.
