The Snow That Listens
A Note from The Winter Child Poet
This morning the world felt unusually quiet — not empty, not cold in the way people imagine winter to be, but quiet in a listening sort of way. As if the snow had settled across the earth not to cover it, but to hear it. That is where this poem began. In that soft silence where the rooftops looked like folded hands and the lanterns shimmered as if carrying messages between the snow and the sky. I walked slowly, afraid to disturb the stillness, yet knowing that winter welcomes gentle footsteps. I have always believed that snow pays attention. It remembers where we pass. It gathers our sighs in its quiet layers. It holds things we cannot say out loud and keeps them safe until morning light is ready to lift them. When I wrote of the sparrows gathering by the chapel eaves, I imagined them as little keepers of peace — creatures who know how to rest, how to wait, how to trust the hush of dawn. Animals understand winter in ways we sometimes forget. But the heart of the poem is the child’s awareness: that beneath the drifting snow, something warm and listening lives. Children sense kindness where adults sense cold, and maybe that is why winter feels different when seen through their eyes. At the end, the whisper — “Be gentle with the world, anew…” — is not a wish for the weather, but for us. For the way we step into each day. For the way we speak, and breathe, and love. If the snow listens, perhaps we can, too. Read the full poem and analysis tomorrow 10th: The Snow That Listens© Al Konda · The Poetry Elite