From “Dogwood Snow” by Dorothy Thompson in The Music of Silence, edited by Alyssa R. Stokes:
Growing up in the South,
It’s such a rare thing
To see the snows of winter;
That’s why I like the spring.
All the flowers begin to bloom;
Colors explode everywhere,
Painting a scene of beautiful hues
No artist will ever compare.
Most of all I like the woods
With trees in green, pink, and white.
Looking like God sprinkled the seed
With a gentle show of might.
And there you see the Dogwood tree
With a history we all know;
White petals falling to the ground
Making our Southern snow.
Hello!
Well! I don’t get to take photos like this very often, since a photogenic snowstorm is such a rare event here in Middle Georgia. But I knew before even looking out the window this morning that we’d had some accumulation: a layer of snow has a way of softening the sounds of the neighborhood that is unlike anything else. I remember from my childhood years in northern New York — where we used to get tons and tons of snow most winters — that a certain kind of quiet morning meant it had snowed overnight.
Our last notable snowstorm was in 2014 — over ten years ago! — and it was such a disaster, it’s still remembered in great detail by people in the area. The city and state gained well-deserved notoriety for being so unprepared for a two-inch, early afternoon snowfall that the interstates clogged with abandoned vehicles stuck on untreated roads. Stories are still told today of people who had to figure out how to walk home from some random spot on the highway, sometimes walking several miles on the same roads they would normally drive, around all the cars that couldn’t move. If you search Google images for Atlanta Snowmageddon 2014, you’ll see some representative (and very accurate!) images that are part of the collective memory of that storm. We have fared much better this time around, though the overnight hours will likely bring some freezing rain, best avoided by most drivers.
My Little Dog, at six years old, has never seen snow. While I had hoped for a few shots of his perky self bouncing around in the yard while the snow was still fluffy, here’s what actually happened: I opened the back door, he took one look at the yard, gave me one of those well-known dog side-eyes, and trotted to his safe space under my desk. Ah, well, maybe he just knew this: a few minutes later, it started raining, and snow isn’t much fun in the rain….
Thanks for taking a look!
