world is suddener

Snow in April is not that uncommon in many of the places I have lived while doing National Poetry Month, but it's uncommon enough that I don't often get to post snow poems. Today, however, as I write this on a train from Boston to New York (we just pulled into Providence), looking out at a snow-dusted New England landscape, this poem feels not only appropriate but inevitable. Or maybe I'm just saying that because my brilliant friend Allie reminded me of its existence yesterday.

The room was suddenly rich and the great bay-window was
Spawning snow and pink roses against it
Soundlessly collateral and incompatible:
World is suddener than we fancy it.

World is crazier and more of it than we think,
Incorrigibly plural. I peel and portion
A tangerine and spit the pips and feel
The drunkenness of things being various.

And the fire flames with a bubbling sound for world
Is more spiteful and gay than one supposes –
On the tongue on the eyes on the ears in the palms of one's hands –
There is more than glass between the snow and the huge roses.

—Louis MacNeice (1907-1963), "Snow," from Poems, 1935. MacNeice was part of Auden's circle, about which I have many, many feelings. As I was looking up the date and publication information, I also stumbled across a fairly lovely short essay about this poem, for those of you who are interested in such things and/or would like some accompanying reading.