Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, January 31, 1995 TAG: 9501310099
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A7 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL SAMPSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
From my vantage on the porch, the flakes seem huge as they come sailing down through the inverted cone of light from the street lamp on the corner. But the light is superfluous. I had forgotten how bright a snowy night can be.
The front lawn is completely covered now. Only the streets and sidewalks with their hoarded warmth resist the quiet onslaught. But the snow will have its way with them, too. And, of course, it has already won my heart.
As I stand here, I recall a battered, old sled on a roped-off street, the sibilant sound of well-waxed runners amid muffled shouts of joy, and a bonfire built at the top of a hill where good friends gathered, whom I have not seen for all these many years.
I move my vigil to the back yard, and the snow somehow seems deeper. I can see the sky from here! Or so I think.
But looking up is not so simple. I must continually blink away the flakes, themselves as soft as eyelashes. Perhaps that patch of luminescence is not the sky at all, but some mystic manifestation of the storm itself. More likely, the gibbous moon, lurking somewhere above and beyond the ice-laden clouds, is adding its own special enchantment to this nightfall of snow.
Back here, there are no streets or sidewalks. And no wind. The night is still, except for the soft sigh of snow crystals cascading down. I could be in Innsbruck. Or Albertville. But no, this is my own back yard, where it seems only yesterday I raked the rustling leaves of autumn into long, crisp columns, marshaling them before the wind to the shelter of the compost bin.
Where do the days go? The only sign of the garden now is a single tomato stake I forgot to pull. But there in the corner by the fence is a landmark - a stately, 40-foot cedar, its dense green foliage a snug haven for overwintering birds.
Thought of them reminds me I will have to be up at first light to clear the feeder and fill it with fresh seeds and suet. And perhaps prepare a ground feeding-area, as well. (News of a good meal travels fast in bird circles, and I am already known as a soft touch.)
I look at the feeder and smile. It has become a bricklayer's hod on a pole, heaped high with mortar of purest white. Nothing, in fact, looks as it should. The upper surfaces of tree limbs, the tops of fence posts, the row of azaleas by the patio wall - all have acquired an alabaster mantle, blending their soft contours into the unblemished beauty of the fallen snow.
As I stand here, I recall a small boy building his first snowman, a boy whose buckle-up boots never stayed buckled, whose mittens always stayed wet, and who had to come in out of the fun far too soon. I also remember the rich aroma of fresh-baked cookies in the kitchen, and the smile on the face of the boy's mother, the smile that continues to cheer him on, though she's been gone all these many years.
Like the boy, I must soon go in. But I will sleep well tonight, reassured that the magic is intact, the magic of the fresh-fallen snow: the way it rounds off the sharp edges of our hectic, hurry-up days, the hush it brings to the land that commands our attention as few things do.
But most of all, the way it covers up the profusion of paths onto which we mortals stray, as if to show us - once again - the clear, unbroken way.
Bill Sampson is a Roanoke free-lancer and member of the local chapter of the Virginia Writers Club.
by CNB