The Snow Storm
The Snow-Storm
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o'er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
Come see the north wind's masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every windward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer's lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer's sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night-work,
The frolic architecture of the snow.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
The Mountain
In March of 2018, I was in a weeklong photographic “marathon.” Our small group traveled nearly 3,000 miles of the Southwest. Starting in Las Vegas, we visited over a dozen photogenic locations in Utah, Arizona, Nevada, and California.
The last day was special. Just 48 hours earlier, we had been sweating in the 80-degree heat outside Phoenix. Now we were in California’s Sierra Mountains. The temperature that last morning was 10 degrees and there were six inches of fresh snow on the ground.
After photographing Hot Creek in the early morning, we drove along Benton Crossing Road near Mammoth Lakes, California. The late winter winds were howling. Suddenly the peaks of the Sierra Nevada mountains were enveloped in swirling snow. We slammed on the brakes and pulled off on the side of the road.
For the next half hour, we joyfully photographed the fierce intersection of wind, snow, and rock. When the winds began to subside along with the feeling in my fingers and toes, we hopped back into our cars, turned up the heat, and headed for breakfast.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck Derus