"The chief forms of beauty are symmetry and order and definiteness."

"Snow" by Elizabeth Tibbetts, from In the Well. © Bluestem Press, 2003.

The old, blue-eyed woman in the bed
is calling down snow. Her heart is failing,
and her eyes are two birds in a pale sky.
Through the window she can see a tree

twinkling with lights on the banking
beyond the parking lot. Lawns are still green
from unseasonable weather. Snow
will put things right; and, sure enough,

by four darkness carries in the first flakes.
Chatter, hall lights, and the rattle of walkers
spill through her doorway as she lies there—
ten miles (half a world) of ocean

between her and her home island.
She looks out from a bed the size of a dinghy.
Beyond the lit tree, beyond town, open water
accepts snow silently and, farther out,

the woods behind her house receive the snow
with a faint ticking of flakes striking needles
and dry leaves—a sound you would not believe
unless you've held your breath and heard it.

Before the snowstorm:

Post title quotation: Aristotle, Metaphysics, book 13, part 3

Possibly related:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3HHng2iuK0

Possibly today's soundtrack:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rlMKFFpsM8U

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