Today made me want to write on the duality of the color white. Therefore, it will be in a poetic form, but not necessarily something that will rhyme.
White–when considered as a color,
It is one of innocence and newness.
When I see it, I see purity–
A symbol of renewed life on Yom Kippur,
Or the color of a bride’s dress on the day of matrimony.
When I saw it today, it was also full of light,
It made the trail easier to see at night,
And it muffled the sound of cars to the right.
If you have not guessed yet, it should be clear
That the first real snow of the season took flight.
With the albedo and pure white,
Snow gives the childish delight,
Especially in the morning after
The crystals scintillate with laughter.
Even when we have it at night,
Photons reflect into more light,
But whenever there is snow and white,
Two enemies of the cyclist may come to bite.
The black wind blew, and of course from the west,
Yes, I was rash enough to bike like a vet(eran)
From Evanston to Skokie became quite a test.
לא היה לי זמן לנסעו ברכבת (I had no time to travel by train)
ללכת לאולפן לפני השעה תשע-עשרה (in order to get to Hebrew class by 19:00)
I could actually see better on the snow-covered trail
As well as the snow-covered street.
Setting a speed record would obviously be a fail,
Partially with the wind having me beat
And also because I feared pulling a fish tail.
The latter did not come to fruition
Nor did I freeze my extremities into submission.
Nonetheless, after my classmates struggled with possessive
I deemed it too dangerous to attempt a ride back
There is a big difference between unpleasant and cold
Versus cold and dangerous–no sense risking a car attack.
So the snow is an excellent example of Yin and Yang
The Yang with the childish fascination
And don’t forget the playfulness within it,
But the Yin comes about when adults try to navigate,
On the road or with the snow whipping into one’s face.
They are not opposing, but parts of the whole,
For every to there is a fro,
And within every darkness, there is a light.
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Today is the three-hundred and twenty-first day of M.M.X.I.V. That makes forty-five weeks and six days.
