Grief like the snow....

There's just something about this picture that tells me she has lived many years, seen a lot, and endured the loss of much.  Call it the inevitable sweep of time.  Maybe these bags hold the remainder of her life.  Without speculation--she is alone, very alone on the bench.  Such is the world of grief. 

Now that we have been deluged with snow--and it is reported that 49 of the states have snow on the ground--here's a classic Longfellow poem that relates the falling of snow to the world of grief, which like the weather, remains out of control. 

Snow-flakes

By Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Out of the bosom of the Air,

      Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken,

Over the woodlands brown and bare,

      Over the harvest-fields forsaken,

            Silent, and soft, and slow

            Descends the snow.

Even as our cloudy fancies take

      Suddenly shape in some divine expression,

Even as the troubled heart doth make

      In the white countenance confession,

            The troubled sky reveals

            The grief it feels.

This is the poem of the air,

      Slowly in silent syllables recorded;

This is the secret of despair,

      Long in its cloudy bosom hoarded,

            Now whispered and revealed

            To wood and field.