I think of this poem any time my feet just can’t seem to stay warm, regardless of the thickness of my socks. And I think there was a flurry this morning in New York, so of course my feet would be considerably chilled, waiting for the bus. But I nonetheless remembered this sentiment and knew it was coming, and yet is always here.
The Snow Man written by Wallace Stevens, published in Harmonium
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
