Mary Oliver’s poem Snowy Night opens with the image of an owl filling the night air with its call. The fact that Oliver doesn’t know the name of the owl is mentioned throughout, woven between imagery of her outstretched hands catching falling snow, the darkness of the trees, and the glittering landscape. The poem closes, ‘I wish great welcome to the snow/whatever its severe and comfortless/and beautiful meaning’. In the poem, the beauty of winter is laid bare, yet it has taken me years of wishing away the season before finally finding a way to experience some of this wonder for myself.
The autumn equinox marks the point in the year when the light dissipates like mist, the darkness bleeding into the days like ink into paper. Previously, my thoughts had rapidly followed suit; I wore winter like a thick cloak that grew heavier as the
