Welcome back to The Daily Poem. I'm David Kern. Today here in the Carolinas and across much of the

southeast, we have been bombarded with what we like to call a snowstorm. For many of you, it's just,

you know, Tuesday from, say, November 1st to April 1st. For us here, where there are no snow plows are

very few to speak of, and where in our vehicles and in our wardrobes, we are not prepared for

some winter weather. It's both exciting and disorienting. I recently read a Billy Collins poem,

and I tried to not have too many poems by the same people too close together.

But Billy Collins wrote a poem called Snow Day, which seemed appropriate for this December 10th snow day that we are experiencing here in the Carolinas.

Billy Collins was born in 1941 and was the poet laureate of the U.S. from 2001 to 2003.

In 2016, he was elected into the American

Academy of Arts and Letters. He has won numerous awards and published numerous collections,

and I highly recommend you check them out. He is certainly one of my favorites. This poem,

Snow Day, was published in 2001 in a collection called Sailing Alone Around the Room.

This is how it goes.

Today we woke up to a revolution of snow.

Its white flag waving over everything.

The landscape vanished.

Not a single mouse to punctuate the blankness.

And beyond these windows, the government buildings smothered, schools and libraries

buried, the post office lost under the noiseless drift, the paths of trains softly blocked.

The world fallen under this falling. In a while I will put on some boots and step out like

someone walking in water, and the dog will porpoise through the drifts, and I will shake a laden

branch, sending a cold shower down on us both.

...