Last month turned out to be the mildest January Minnesota has seen in 160 years, with no subzero temperatures and barely any snow on the ground. I have been saving this poem, by Edna St. Vincent Millay, for the next big snow storm that has never arrived. At least now temperatures are finally normal and we got several inches last night.

No hawk hangs over in this air:
The urgent snow is everywhere.
The wing adroiter than a sail
Must lean away from such a gale,
Abandoning its straight intent,
Or else expose tough ligament
And tender flesh to what before
Meant dampened feathers, nothing more.
Forceless upon our backs there fall
Infrequent flakes hexagonal,
Devised in many a curious style
To charm our safety for a while,
Where close to earth like mice we go
Under the horizontal snow.