Winter Mornings

I love snow days!  Sometimes I think we teachers love them as much as the kids do!  There's nothing better than waking up on a winter morning to find several inches of new fallen snow. I love how the world becomes suddenly quiet and everything slows down, no rushing out the door at 5:45 AM, no long commute to work, or scrambling to the copy machine to beat the crowd.  Nope! A snow day is all about having precious unexpected time to make a crock-pot of vegetable soup, savoring the smell of homemade rolls in the oven, sipping cups of hot cocoa, and curling up with a good book. 

My husband has a different idea about what makes a perfect snow day.   He walks about five miles most every day regardless of the weather.  He likes to walk in the early morning or late evening, especially in winter. He says the frozen air energizes him. I enjoy going for walks outside too, but not when temperatures dip below zero! 

For Christmas, he gave me a copy of Ted Kooser's WINTER MORNING WALKS: one hundred postcards to Jim Harrison.  So while my hubby was out for his walk,  I enjoyed a winter morning walk of another kind with one of my favorite poets.
                                                     

There are so many lovely poems in this collection. Today I'm sharing one that has special meaning to me because my mother passed away June 10 (technically still spring), and this was our first Christmas without her.  It begins:

december 31

Cold and snowing.
The opening pages forgotten,
then the sadness of my mother's death
in the cold, wet chapters of spring.

You can read the rest of the poem here.   The poem is toward the bottom of the page.
You can also read about composer Maria Schneider setting the poems to music.

Be sure to stop by and say hello to Tara at her new blog site A Teaching Life , and have a delightful Poetry Friday!