Snow

As a stream-of-consciousness poem, “Snow” isolates distinct feelings conjured by the poet’s mind associations. The breaks in time and place stress this, as the poem doesn’t follow a coherent realistic progression. Instead, the image of snow connects three distinct scenes: The first scene is the two brothers walking through the field and looking at the snow angels. The second scene is the two brothers walking atop the frozen lake. The third scene is the speaker and his neighbor shoveling together.

In the first scene, the snow has already fallen and is presumably fresh because children have made snow angels in it. In the second scene, there is technically no snow, but the frozen lake mimics the image of snow in the other stanzas, as snow is a type of frozen water. The frozen lake suggests the cold has been around for a while, implying whatever snow there is has been falling for some time. Finally, the third image contains the speaker and his neighbor shoveling. This would suggest the snow has already fallen, but the imagery of this section shows that the snow is still falling. The