The Snow Came Down and Our Hearts Burst with Joy

Snow comes to Columbia and, at Jasper, we honor the fresh new prism it lends us for the needed respite of seeing the world in the light that was intended - cleanly and with introspection and joy.

A blue sky and a white day.

This is all we need for a moment.

Wilma King

"Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.”
Mary Oliver

Green Eyes - Clark Ellefson

“I love you because no two snowflakes are alike, and it is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops.”
Nikki Giovanni

Laura Garner Hine

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”
Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

courtesy of Ed Madden & Bert Easter

“The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches.”
E.E. Cummings

Paul R. Moore & Rusty Sox

“A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.”
Carl Reiner

Snow Bunny - Tim McLendon

“The more I see, the less I know, the more I'd like to let it go.”
Red Hot Chili Peppers

Jay Hubbell - Change for Change - Muddy Ford

“It is growing cold. Winter is putting footsteps in the meadow. What whiteness boasts that sun that comes into this wood! One would say milk-colored maidens are dancing on the petals of orchids. How coldly burns our sun! One would say its rays of light are shards of snow, one imagines the sun lives upon a snow crested peak on this day. One would say she is a woman who wears a gown of winter frost that blinds the eyes. Helplessness has weakened me. Wandering has wearied my legs.”
Roman Payne

courtesy of Dick Moons

“I think a lot of snowflakes are alike...and I think a lot of people are alike too.”
Bret Easton Ellis

Dick Moons

“It snowed last year too: I made a snowman and my brother knocked it down and I knocked my brother down and then we had tea.”
Dylan Thomas, A Child's Christmas in Wales

Julie Seel

“This is my first snow at Smith. It is like any other snow, but from a different window, and there lies the singular charm of it.”
Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Artist unknown - Muddy Ford

“As he looked out and saw the grey landscape through the gently falling snow, he could not help thinking how much better it would be if people could go to sleep like the fields; could be blanketed down under the snow, to wake with their hurts healed and their defeats forgotten.”
Willa Cather, One of Ours

With thanks to Clark, Bert and Ed, Julie, Dick, Paul and Rusty, Tim, Laura, and Wilma.