For Real Toads Weekend Challenge
Waiting for Snow
“There is no Final Resting Place of the Mind.” – Anthony Bourdain
the cold air feels still –
total silence – the air feels hollow –
an empty ring – like the single bonnnngggg
from a distant temple bell –
a sweet smell in the air –
the snow is holding off
waiting for 3:00 p.m.
the timeline announced by the
blatheringyammeringnattering
weather folk for the snow to begin.
The feral cats are hunkered down,
Hidden.
They know. The birds know. The squirrels know.
We humans don’t know shit.
European model. U.S. model.
Snow will begin when snow begins.
The first flake slowly circles downward.
Let the games begin.
kanzen sakura 
Jan 12, 2019 @ 16:57:55
That hour before the snow starts falling is the hollow bell of this poem. Prediction (or future knowledge assured) just makes us faint of hearing. Well done.
Jan 12, 2019 @ 20:23:32
I especially love the last 4 lines.
Jan 12, 2019 @ 20:53:29
4 pm was the time we were told it would begin 🙂 I filled the bird feeder and the do seem to know without being told. And honestly, if we looked to the sky and not our phones – We’d know as well 🙂
Jan 12, 2019 @ 21:23:00
Yes indeed or my husband stopped looking at the weather channel.
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Jan 12, 2019 @ 21:48:38
nature will always be an accurate weather prognosticator within itself – and it’s easy to know it, if one reads the signs – and even more so, when feeling it …. in the body.
I really loved the line “snow begins when snow begins” — and that’s just it; nature is as it will. End of one story, beginning of another (how lovely to just enjoy a snowfall…)
Jan 12, 2019 @ 21:57:21
You have captured that hollow feeling of a winter afternoon just before the snow falls. You took me back to snowy winters of years past.
Jan 13, 2019 @ 01:28:44
Wow! I can actually hear that bell in my head. Great mood piece.. the hollow air. Love it.
Jan 13, 2019 @ 02:41:12
You’ve captured the moment so well, Toni, the hollowness of pending snow and the way it decides when it will send its first few flakes. I like the contrast of total silence and the sound of the weather announcement. I trust the wildlife to let me know when the weather’s changing.
Jan 13, 2019 @ 08:10:37
As do I. Most folks around here seem addicted to their weather announcers. I watched this storm developing all week. I am pretty weatherwise. I told my husband we word be having snow on the ground Sat morn He said, oh no, the weather folk were saying Thurs night. Well, no snow. Got up Sat and there was snow! My mother if she had been would have started making a big pot of veggie soup Fri morning.
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Jan 13, 2019 @ 06:22:44
Such a wonderfully atmospheric poem, Toni ❤ I could actually hear the bell ring in my head. 😊
Jan 13, 2019 @ 13:01:00
Am back from the Pantry and yes, I could hear that temple booong too!
Jan 13, 2019 @ 13:36:22
😊
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Jan 13, 2019 @ 13:54:42
“We humans don’t know shit”: Indeed!
Love how you depict the moment and the wait for what is to come eventually.
Jan 13, 2019 @ 14:00:02
I had to laugh out loud at this !! My weather app also tells me exactly how many minutes to rain as well as now. The idiocy of it all,
Jan 13, 2019 @ 14:05:57
Lol. I took my app off my phone and installed a Weather Rock, to the amusement of my husband, outside on my back step. If it is wet it is raining, if white it is snowing, if dry the weather is clear. I can smell rain and snow coming . I have been tracking this storm all week. Friday I told my my husband it wouldn’t amount to much. I was right. 😊
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Jan 13, 2019 @ 14:03:24
Weather patterns shift all the time, the best prediction is with a 24 hour guideline. I have seen major storm fizzle out due to a shift in the jet stream. I agree the snow will come when it comes.
Jan 13, 2019 @ 14:13:48
You are so right, the snow begins when it begins, we know nothing.
Jan 13, 2019 @ 16:50:43
Yes, snow will begin when snow begins. So often the forecasts turn out ro be wrong. Here anyway they often scare with their dire predictions. I laughed about the snow waiting for 3 p.m. which the forecaster predicted. I can hear the snow in the sky saying…..”Not yet! It is only 2:50.”
Jan 13, 2019 @ 16:55:32
I can too. At 3:15 my husband said to me with the most plaintive face – it isn’t snowing yet!
Jan 13, 2019 @ 17:00:43
I’m glad that snow has a mind of its own!
Jan 13, 2019 @ 18:17:47
Nature always knows. Loved that bonnnngggg. 🙂
Jan 13, 2019 @ 18:33:55
Wonderful, especially the last stanza. We humans really don’t know shit!
Jan 13, 2019 @ 18:54:27
Lol..
No we don’t! 😄
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Jan 13, 2019 @ 20:58:53
Ah, Toni, you wrote of the best part of snowing. The first falling of a new fall. I remember some well. We buried my mom in a Nebraska blizzard.
..
Jan 13, 2019 @ 21:40:46
Lovely! And yes, other living creatures are so much more aware than we are.
Jan 13, 2019 @ 22:09:14
They always know!
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Jan 13, 2019 @ 21:46:10
Snow will begin when snow begins…. now that’s the wisest line I’ve read all morning. So agree!
Jan 13, 2019 @ 22:08:16
Thank you. My husband came to me at 3:15 And says, it isn’t snowing yet!
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Jan 14, 2019 @ 00:26:52
The poem captures moments when time stood still, literally and then happening begins. A beautiful contrast of total pause and stir.
Jan 14, 2019 @ 05:42:29
Give the weather forecasters their due, they hope their forecasts are correct but in reality the weather behaves like a naughty child!
Jan 14, 2019 @ 10:40:03
I love the change in tone, how reality becomes a storm of truth in our faces. So true. (We know nothing, Jon Snow *couldn’t help myself*).
Jan 14, 2019 @ 11:17:27
Lol. Jon Snow truly did know nothing! 😉
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Jan 15, 2019 @ 07:48:11
he did learn towards the end, lol!
Jan 15, 2019 @ 17:29:12
Are you LOL-ing at my husband or at the suicide of my long time friend Tony?
Jan 15, 2019 @ 23:17:27
It would take a special sort of mind to think that…
Jan 16, 2019 @ 12:07:29
I apologize. I realize you were referring to zJon Snow. Of course you would not make such a comment about a friend’s suicide. I am so sorry. This week would have been the anniversary of my mother’s birthday and I am on edge.
Jan 16, 2019 @ 12:49:49
I understand pain’s need to spill, to find something to break or, at least, to share its hurt with… especially while loss is squeezing hardest. When we are at our most vulnerable, pain isn’t the best at asking for permission (or at apologizing). So, thank you for telling me why. I’m sorry this time is so hard for you. I hope the bad comes laced with good memories (maybe mixed in a yellow bowl?) which bring some soothing to your heart.
Jan 16, 2019 @ 13:06:28
Bless you for understanding. I miss her so badly but especially on her birthday and in June when she died.
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Jan 16, 2019 @ 13:33:55
((💙))
Jan 20, 2019 @ 10:44:31
And finally today we have snow here, not last week. It is still like you describe right now. I love this moment, when it is coming and everything/everyone waits.
Jan 20, 2019 @ 18:11:13
It is a magical stilling of time