I Have Promises to Keep

This afternoon a light, lovely snow materialized, the kind that coats every surface and transforms the world into a winter scene from a Hasui print.  It was in the mid-30s, almost too warm to snow.  I was outside rigging up a way of hanging my new squirrel-proof bird feeder (knocked angrily to the ground the night before and contents gone), and had finally decided to string a long 20-ga. wire from tree to tree-house.  While I was wrapping the wire around the tree, I realized that silent white flakes were drifting down, speckling my vest, gently at first and then absolutely pouring.

All afternoon the snow continued to fall.  Martha cancelled her hair appointment and eased down the Walhalla Road, and just in time according to reports on Facebook.  So we watched from the windows as it piled up, turning that ghostly blue shade as evening came on.

Such a snow as this always reminds me of that enigmatic Frost poem, which at some point in my New England childhood I must have committed to memory.

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.