Snow!

Since it's a Red Blue Green tradition to celebrate the season's first snow with pictures, a poem, and an iTunes mix, here's this year's crop. First, the photos:



Next, a poem by Mary Oliver:

FIRST SNOW

The snow
began here
this morning and all day
continued, its white
rhetoric everywhere
calling us back to why, how,
whence such beauty and what
the meaning; such
an oracular fever! flowing
past windows, an energy it seemed
would never ebb, never settle
less than lovely! and only now,
deep into night,
it has finally ended.
The silence
is immense,
and the heavens still hold
a million candles; nowhere
the familiar things:
stars, the moon,
the darkness we expect
and nightly turn from. Trees
glitter like castles
of ribbons, the broad fields
smolder with light, a passing
creekbed lies
heaped with shining hills;
and though the questions
that have assailed us all day
remain-not a single
answer has been found-
walking out now
into the silence and the light
under the trees,
and through the fields,
feels like one.

And, finally, an (edited) iTunes mix, the result of using "snow" as the search term:

1. Snow Crush Killing Song -- The Mountain Goats
2. Velvet Snow -- Kings of Leon
3. Snow Cherries From France -- Tori Amos
4. Snow (Hey Oh) -- Red Hot Chili Peppers
5. Angel in the Snow -- Elliott Smith
6. Snow Camping -- Laura Veirs
7. Snow Lion -- Readymade FC feat. Feist
8. 20 Years Of Snow -- Regina Spektor
9. Snow On The Sahara -- Anggun
10. Snow -- Loreena McKennitt
11. Snowden -- Doves
12. Snow On The Sahara -- Stanford University Harmonics
13. Snow Is Gone -- Josh Ritter
14. Snowflake Music -- Mark Mothersbaugh

Actually, since that's a partial repeat of last year, here's a "winter" mix to grow on:

1. Faded From The Winter -- Iron & Wine
2. The Winter Solstice -- Sufjan Stevens
3. Wait For The Wintertime -- Yeasayer
4. Winter Wonderland -- Aimee Mann
5. Winter -- Tori Amos
6. Winter Is Gone -- Nick Drake
7. In Winter Still -- Dot Allison
8. In The Bleak Mid-Winter -- Shawn Colvin
9. Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind -- Barenaked Ladies
10. The Winter Song -- Eisley
11. Dead Of Winter -- Eels
12. Summer Dress 1 (All Her Winter Clothes) -- Plus/Minus