Jane's Pocket Change: Snow, Snow
How quickly it becomes a new way of life, land-locked, housebound, gazing out on, sometimes beauty and often times frustration. What a long winter—is it two weeks already? Certainly the best of it is watching my corgi frolic happily in the white cold. The worst of it is the struggle over the “No School Days,” getting it right for classes, drivers and the calendar.
How quickly it becomes a new way of life, land-locked, housebound, gazing out on, sometimes beauty and often times frustration. What a long winter—is it two weeks already? Certainly the best of it is watching my corgi frolic happily in the white cold. The worst of it is the struggle over the “No School Days,” getting it right for classes, drivers and the calendar.
At times, Julie Johnstone and I think we might have trained ourselves to be better meteorologists than school administrators; other times we just plain wonder. We certainly thank all our CSW families for their patience and understanding as we manage both the geographic range of where you all live and our boarding students here on campus. We thank our facilities crew sincerely for working all night and yet again the next day to clear and prepare the campus.
So today, Monday, as I work at home and look out into the winter woods, I offer you a poem by Mary Oliver to help keep it all in perspective.
Snowy Night
Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant.
But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
~ Mary Oliver inWhat Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems, p 67.
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Pocket Change is a web diary written by Jane Moulding, head of school.
Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant.
But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness.
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.
~ Mary Oliver inWhat Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems, p 67.
_________________________________________________________
Pocket Change is a web diary written by Jane Moulding, head of school.
The Cambridge School of Weston is a progressive high school for day and boarding students in grades 9–12 and PG. CSW's mission is to provide a progressive education that emphasizes deep learning, meaningful relationships, and a dynamic program that inspires students to discover who they are and what their contribution is to their school, their community and the world.