WEBVTT

00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.260 align:middle line:90%


00:00:01.260 --> 00:00:05.850 align:middle line:84%
Here's a poem which I wrote last
April about a snowstorm, which

00:00:05.850 --> 00:00:07.350 align:middle line:84%
came in the latter
part of the month

00:00:07.350 --> 00:00:09.930 align:middle line:84%
when we thought that even in
The Berkshires of Massachusetts,

00:00:09.930 --> 00:00:12.720 align:middle line:84%
we might be through
with the winter.

00:00:12.720 --> 00:00:15.420 align:middle line:84%
It was one of the bigger
storms of the year,

00:00:15.420 --> 00:00:22.950 align:middle line:84%
very fine flakes to it, and
a kind of a disorderly wind

00:00:22.950 --> 00:00:26.280 align:middle line:84%
which made it seem as if there
were as much snow falling up,

00:00:26.280 --> 00:00:28.900 align:middle line:90%
as there was falling down.

00:00:28.900 --> 00:00:33.150 align:middle line:84%
This is about that
storm, and also it

00:00:33.150 --> 00:00:39.210 align:middle line:84%
touches on the general question
of taking leave, going.

00:00:39.210 --> 00:00:40.140 align:middle line:90%
"A Storm in April."

00:00:40.140 --> 00:00:42.910 align:middle line:90%


00:00:42.910 --> 00:00:49.200 align:middle line:84%
"Some winters taking leave
deal us a last hard blow.

00:00:49.200 --> 00:00:54.570 align:middle line:84%
Salting the ground like
Carthage, before they will go.

00:00:54.570 --> 00:00:58.980 align:middle line:84%
But the bright milling snow,
which throngs the air today--

00:00:58.980 --> 00:01:03.510 align:middle line:84%
it is a way of
leaving, so as to stay.

00:01:03.510 --> 00:01:07.290 align:middle line:84%
The light flakes do not
weigh the willows down,

00:01:07.290 --> 00:01:12.600 align:middle line:84%
but sift through the white
catkins, loose as petal drift.

00:01:12.600 --> 00:01:15.990 align:middle line:84%
Or in an up-draft lift
and glitter at a height,

00:01:15.990 --> 00:01:21.300 align:middle line:84%
dazzling us summer's leaf
stir chinked with light.

00:01:21.300 --> 00:01:25.650 align:middle line:84%
This storm if I am right,
will not be wholly over,

00:01:25.650 --> 00:01:29.130 align:middle line:84%
till green fields, here
and there, turn white

00:01:29.130 --> 00:01:32.550 align:middle line:84%
with clover, and
through chill air,

00:01:32.550 --> 00:01:34.695 align:middle line:90%
the puffs of milkweed hover."

00:01:34.695 --> 00:01:37.710 align:middle line:90%


00:01:37.710 --> 00:01:39.360 align:middle line:84%
Those willows aren't
the weeping kind.

00:01:39.360 --> 00:01:42.030 align:middle line:84%
They're swamp willows that
again, I didn't have room

00:01:42.030 --> 00:01:45.360 align:middle line:84%
to say that, and you really
can't spell everything out

00:01:45.360 --> 00:01:45.960 align:middle line:90%
in a poem.

00:01:45.960 --> 00:01:48.600 align:middle line:90%


00:01:48.600 --> 00:01:52.320 align:middle line:84%
I hope that in spite of
all that chiming rhyme,

00:01:52.320 --> 00:01:56.220 align:middle line:84%
I got myself into a pattern
rather like Robert Frost's,

00:01:56.220 --> 00:01:58.200 align:middle line:90%
"Stopping By Woods."

00:01:58.200 --> 00:02:00.810 align:middle line:84%
And spoke that in spite
of all that rhyme,

00:02:00.810 --> 00:02:05.270 align:middle line:84%
you could see the
whiteness throughout.