Place Poem: "Snow, Aldo" by Kate DiCamillo

Surprising weather as an opportunity to stand still and look up

Here in the greater Pacific Northwest area, we’ve been put through the weather ringer recently: a brutal week of snow and ice in January, followed immediately by a tantalizing warm spell reaching into the 50s and 60s. The balmy promise of spring turned out to be not so much a promise as a tease; the temperatures fell as quickly as they rose, and we are now immersed in another cold snap. Along with the cold came a sudden few hours of the sort of thick, heavy snow with which I thought we had dispensed for the year.

I sound like I’m complaining. That’s because I am. Luckily, I have today’s place poem, and the wisdom of dogs, to help me take a different perspective on the situation.

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Snow, Aldo
by Kate DiCamillo

Once, I was in New York,
in Central Park, and I saw
an old man in a black overcoat walking
a black dog. This was springtime
and the trees were still
bare and the sky was
gray and low and it began, suddenly,
to snow:
big fat flakes
that twirled and landed on the
black of the man's overcoat and
the black dog's fur. The dog
lifted his face and stared
up at the sky. The man looked
up, too. "Snow, Aldo," he said to the dog,
"snow." And he laughed.
The dog looked
at him and wagged his tail.

If I was in charge of making
snow globes, this is what I would put inside:
the old man in the black overcoat,
the black dog,
two friends with their faces turned up to the sky
as if they were receiving a blessing,
as if they were being blessed together
by something
as simple as snow
in March.

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Like many of my favorite poems, this one is lovely and uncomplicated. I certainly don’t mind when a poem needs some deciphering, but I appreciate when it presents a single simple moment that can still offer us a heap of wisdom. In this instance, what might have been a poem about unwanted snow in March is instead a short meditation on the connection between a man and his dog, and a small blessing they receive from the sky.

This is a connection that means a lot to me not just as a dog lover, but as a lover of observing my dogs take great joy in a fresh snowfall. This includes Pennie, our recently-adopted, devastatingly tiny long-haired dachshund, who has taken to burying her entire baby face in the snow and only occasionally coming up for air, which yields predictably adorable results:

Snow, Pennie. Snow.

So for me, it’s tough not to love the dog-and-owner pair in “Snow, Aldo.” One thing I appreciate about them is the sense that they are equals rather than the old-school roles of “master” and “animal.” If anything, it’s the man who’s taking cues from the dog in this scenario: “The dog / lifted his face and stared / up at the sky. The man looked / up, too.” After following the dog’s gaze, he reciprocates by stating an incredibly obvious but beautiful fact that hangs in the air between them, connecting them to each other, and to the moment they’re both in: “Snow, Aldo. Snow.”

I’d be shocked if I haven’t ever said the exact same thing to my dog Rhody over the years. Because my job is, for the majority of the time, a solo one without a ton of human interaction, I spend a good portion of my day talking to my dogs, and Rhody in particular. My quips to him range from the scolding (“Barking is against the law in this house, and I know that you know that and yet there you go anyhow”) to the encouraging (“You’re the biggest dog in this entire house, and you should take pride in that”). I also ask him really obvious but important questions: “You’re a dog—did you know that?” “Why are you such a dog?” etc etc.

I think it’s unbearably sweet that both the dog, and the man in the coat, have taken this opportunity to simply mark the moment, the space and the time, that they’re in together. The dog does this by stopping to look up at the surprising wonder that’s being visited upon them; the man does it by reflecting this back to his companion in simply-stated words. I might even argue that both of them, in their own way, are giving the other the same important but simple reminder: “You are here.”

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Like his new sister, Rhody is entirely luxuriant in the snow, as he demonstrates in this video taken on Christmas morning 2021 during a serendipitous snowfall that echoes the poem (right down to the “big, fat flakes”).

Of course, as we can see in the video, Rhody is hyperactive in the most wonderful way. But in “Snow, Aldo”, I like that both man and dog respond to the snow not even so much with joy, but with gentle, amused equanimity. It’s a slow, lightly attentive reaction that draws them together into the same act of gazing up at the falling snow. This moment is a richer one than if the man were out for a walk alone, looking up at the sky and saying nothing, accompanied by nobody; certainly it’s preferable to the dog looking up, and the man impatiently tugging the dog out of his reverie, maybe in frustration, in the usual hurry to wrap up the walk and get home.

The latter reaction might be a familiar one for someone like me, who is frankly annoyed by the late-arriving March snow we’ve faced over the past 48 hours. But when he’s on a walk, Rhody is wise (if not incredibly smart—sorry, pal). He very literally stops to smell the roses, about every eight seconds, as a matter of fact. Yes, it’s annoying, and yes, it’s even more annoying during an out-of-season March snowstorm. But he’s noticing things that are right in front of his face, while I’m ruminating on something in the past or rushing towards something or someplace in the future.

In this poem, the pair out for a walk stands out as an example for each other, and for the rest of us. The poet is drawing us to this by emphasizing—three times in the span of a pretty short poem—that both the dog and the man’s coat are black, and thus stand in contrast to the snow, and deserve our attention in the same way that the snow in that moment deserves their attention. Aldo and his companion are both teaching us something worthwhile; that far from being inconvenienced by a late snow, they are “being blessed together.”

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For the first time in a few weeks, it’s time for some on-theme place picks:

Music

“Snowblind on Snoopy Hill,” by Andrew Marlin (Apple Music/Spotify)

Andrew Marlin is a mandolinist, songwriter, and producer from Warrenton, North Carolina. I saw him just a couple of weeks ago here in Boise as part of the bluegrass supergroup Mighty Poplar, which also includes several members of the group I featured in last week’s post, Punch Brothers. If you have heard Andrew’s voice or mandolin playing, however, it’s most likely been via Watchhouse (formerly known as Mandolin Orange), the duo he helms with his partner, Emily Frantz. I don’t think I’ve featured them before in this space, but I surely will before too long.

During the pandemic, Marlin put out a couple of solo albums, mostly instrumental bluegrass/roots offerings. This one is a particular favorite.

Photos

Bonus dogs! In her early weeks with us, Pennie has decided that her sole wish is to do everything her big brother does. He chews a big stick in the backyard, she chews a puny twig. He chases the squirrel, she tries and fails just as spectacularly as he. We have established that she has adopted his passion for snow, though is liable to be buried under just a few inches if we aren’t careful.

In this instance, Pennie followed Rhody all the way to his bed, with adorable results. I literally just walked in on this the other day. I’m not the only one who sees her little smirk, right?