I was looking up details on the snow we are expecting tomorrow and came across these wonderful pictures of snow in Amsterdam. They are absolutely stunning. I had posted some pictures of the snow we had last winter. This year the viral infection has left me weak and I hope I am able to take at least a few pictures. Fingers crossed!

In the meantime, here is one of my favorite poems by Agha Shahid Ali:

Snowmen
BY AGHA SHAHID ALI
My ancestor, a man
of Himalayan snow,
came to Kashmir from Samarkand,
carrying a bag
of whale bones:
heirlooms from sea funerals.
His skeleton
carved from glaciers, his breath
arctic,
he froze women in his embrace.
His wife thawed into stony water,
her old age a clear
evaporation.

This heirloom,
his skeleton under my skin, passed
from son to grandson,
generations of snowmen on my back.
They tap every year on my window,
their voices hushed to ice.

No, they won’t let me out of winter,
and I’ve promised myself,
even if I’m the last snowman,
that I’ll ride into spring
on their melting shoulders.

Agha Shahid Ali, “The Snowmen” from The Half-Inch Himalayas © 1987 by Agha Shahid Ali. Sourced from Poetry Foundation.