Winter is here.

I’ve been listening to a lot of music during this transitional time in my life. I’m actually pretty basic in terms of taste. I don’t know much about tempo and bridges and measures and other music related words. I listen to find solace in lyrics; the poetry. Florence and the Machine is one of my all time favorite artists. I connect with a lot of her lyrics, especially those about spirituality and mental health. There is one line that has been on my mind recently. She sings about a desire to raise children and then she sings What if one day there is no such thing as snow? The jump from one thought to the next is abrupt, but I think I understand what she means. It brings tears to my eyes. It’s such a devastating thought and it seems increasingly realistic as we march steadily down our current path. Would I make the choice to voluntarily bring children into a world that has lost snow as a result of slow motion to mitigate climate change? Is that fair to the child? Of course, I assume that’s what she means. That’s how I interpret it anyway. It’s on one of her earlier albums.

That’s the beauty of poetry, isn’t it? That unmerciful cut to the quick. There is no intellectual clarification needed. She asks you imagine the disappearance of snow from our collective experience. Is life still worth living without it? What is lost? What if snow becomes a memory? What if we can only tell the younger generations that snow used to exist here with us and that it was magical, but that magic is gone now. If you’re willing, you can imagine it with her and feel what she feels and when a song is really good, it’s sound pairs with the feeling perfectly.

We’re waiting for snow now. The forecast says we’ll get several inches tonight. It’s been years since we’ve had a proper snowstorm and I look forward to waking up tomorrow to my part of the world quieted by a fluffy, florescent blanket made up of millions of microscopic flakes settled gently on top of one another. The effect is a unification of all things as far as the eye can see. There is really no experience I know like that of a fresh, deep snow.

My search for “words for snow” says the Scots have 421. What would happen to them if snow disappeared and the Scots couldn’t experience enough of it’s intricacies to necessitate the use of all those words? If you don’t live in a snowy climate, I can tell you that there are a lot of different snow qualities to describe and appreciate. Snow is definitely complex enough to make 421 words plausible. There is packing snow, good for building and snowball fights. There is icy, sleety snow that is not good for either. To tromp around in that, you’ll need waterproof boots. There are stinging, little flakes that seem never to land. They come alongside drifts and bitter wind. For those little buggers, you need a scarf. They love to blow in around your ears and nestle down your neck, freezing you to your bones. After the plows come through and the snow has melted and thawed a few times, there are layers upon layers of possible consistencies and textures to describe. There are also optical variations that come with each type of snow. Sometimes it sticks heavily to the trees and steadily drips diamond droplets of water in the sunshine. The snow’s reflection of a full moon’s light can be so bright it feels like a dreamier version of daytime. A heavy snowfall changes the shape of everything to a softer version of itself and the glow of the morning winter sun on freshly fallen snow is iridescent. It contains every color and none of them. In the sunlight it’s too bright to see, but you don’t mind. Even on the mornings when the chill stings your cheeks, the air feels crisp and refreshing. Sometimes the clouds stay low and gray skies swirl the flakes, convincing you through window panes that you should stay indoors. I recommend you add a mug of hot chocolate, a cozy blanket, and take the afternoon to watch the show.

In my neck of the woods, snow doesn’t stick around long enough to necessitate 421 words, but I would bet that I use more than someone living in a hot, dry climate. I would also bet that if I lived in a place where the snow stayed from fall until spring, I’d be real close to the Scots in number of words needed to describe it. Snow feels like magic because it is indescribable.

I suppose the virginal quality snow brings to Mother Nature is part of the magic, too. Clean. There is perceptible, cosmic pause that snow brings with it as it settles to the ground. Under snow’s cover, it feels like we are all cocooned together. Mother Nature invites the snow to rest a minute. See all these young creatures here on earth? Stay. Know them from the inside out. And so the snow stays and melts deep into everything before returning to the sky.

My ears hear Flo’s words as a desperate plea to the universe for some clarity on the subject. Won’t someone please tell me the right thing to do? That’s the question I have been unknowingly shouting my whole life and Flo pushed that exact feeling from inside her lungs out into the world for me to catch in my cochlea. Girl, same.

I guess that’s a lot to get out of one line in a song, but I think that’s what Flo’s singing about. That’s what makes it poetry, right? A snowstorm is behind every word. As she sings them I feel a cold ache in my chest at the thought. What if there was no such thing as snow? Her next line is another question. Oh God, what do I know? And there, too, I relate.