The sidewalk – the enormous length of sidewalk – is being cleaned across the street at the funeral home with a leaf blower. Perhaps it should now be called a hand-held snowblower. I just don’t understand why brooms aren’t used anymore for a light snow. In the time it’s taking her to blow the snow, I could have broomed it once and a half. And I would have made pleasant swooshing sounds rather than that annoying drone of the motor at 8:30 Sunday morning. I would have been quite tired, too, but I would have come back inside feeling exhilarated and glad for the exercise.
Yet we react to the new-found peacefulness by combating the fresh snow, by salting roads and sidewalks and revving up noisy plows and diesel blowers. In cities we constantly push around the snow — we move it out of our way, shovel and plow and mold it to ease our commutes and comply with regulations. It is contradictory: we react to the serene landscapes of new-fallen snow with loud and mechanized aggression.
No wonder that we have responded with so little creativity to the poetic presence of snow.
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