Snow Day

Are there any two words in the English language that can elicit more giddiness in a Midwest girl than "snow day?" I think not. I awoke to yet another sunny, Southern Californian morning with a text message from DeeHo in Chicago:

"it's a snow day!!! look at the news!!"

I instantly crawled back in bed with a smile on my face. No school today. Instead, a day filled with snowsuits, and snowball fights with the kids on Churchill Street. Then, change out of our wet clothes and going to Frankie's house across the way to watch TV and play gin rummy and Uno, on a day that stretched on forever in its silent white perfection. Soon, the plows would come down the street and we'd watch the falling snowflakes get smaller, more drifty, until eventually it was just lake-effect snow, all but meaningless, and certainly not enough snow to bring us another gift like this day.

A few years back, when I was living in Chicago, I heard a poem read on the radio that exactly captures the essence of a snow day. I'm reprinting it without permission, but I hope that the author Billy Collins knows it is in appreciation of a poem that makes me nostalgic and giggly. I found it at this poetry site. Enjoy, and have some hot cocoa for me!

Snow Day

By Billy Collins

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow,

its white flag waving over everything,

the landscape vanished,

not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness,

and beyond these windows

the government buildings smothered,

schools and libraries buried, the post office lost

under the noiseless drift,

the paths of trains softly blocked,

the world fallen under this falling.

In a while, I will put on some boots

and step out like someone walking in water,

and the dog will porpoise through the drifts,

and I will shake a laden branch

sending a cold shower down on us both.

But for now I am a willing prisoner in this house,

a sympathizer with the anarchic cause of snow.

I will make a pot of tea

and listen to the plastic radio on the counter,

as glad as anyone to hear the news

that the Kiddie Corner School is closed,

the Ding-Dong School, closed.

the All Aboard Children’s School, closed,

the Hi-Ho Nursery School, closed,

along with—some will be delighted to hear—

the Toadstool School, the Little School,

Little Sparrows Nursery School,

Little Stars Pre-School, Peas-and-Carrots Day School

the Tom Thumb Child Center, all closed,

and—clap your hands—the Peanuts Play School.

So this is where the children hide all day,

These are the nests where they letter and draw,

where they put on their bright miniature jackets,

all darting and climbing and sliding,

all but the few girls whispering by the fence.

And now I am listening hard

in the grandiose silence of the snow,

trying to hear what those three girls are plotting,

what riot is afoot,

which small queen is about to be brought down.

_______
Billy Collins, “Snow Day” from Sailing Alone Around the Room: New and Selected Poems (New York: Random House, 2001). Copyright © 2001 by Billy Collins. Reprinted with the permission of Sll/Sterling Lord Literistic, Inc.