Mary Oliver's First Snow

I think that reading this poem is perfect timing. We are starting to see and feel this transition from beautiful fall to a change in the surroundings to cold snowy winter. In the poem, "First Snow", Mary Oliver is describing this transition of knowing the moment that fall is over and winter is taking over. And with this transition of the darkening of fall to the bright snow, I feel like it is a transition on one’s own questions, because you are moving from that darkness of the unknown to the light of knowing you have found the answers.
Oliver sets up her poem as a monologue with an implied audience (or at least a companion), as we see when the poem says; “calling us back”, “the darkness we expect” and “assailed us all day”. These expressions

And this is where we start with our image. Then Oliver adds, “began here this morning and all day” (2-3) which immediately changes your image to this beginning of the day where the snow is only just starting to fall. Also, Oliver seems to personify the snow by saying “it’s white rhetoric everywhere”(4-5) by giving the sense of knowledge to the snow. Oliver is showing this knowledge that the snow has by playing with this word “rhetoric” meaning having the art of persuasive speaking, so it shows how this snow is grabbing our attention. And then it continues with “calling us back to why, how, whence such beauty and what the meaning;” (6-8) this changes your image of snow greatly to making you think of snow as a greater power leading you to seek questions. This is an automatic change from snow to self. Then it transitions back to the focus back on snow, “flowing past windows,” (9-10) and you are then again transferred back to this image of snow fluttering through the wind, but you also have your thoughts of the unknown and you are relating it to the snow all of this unknown is just floating

You can see this shift through the use of punctuation. This form of punctuation is the second of the total of three main sections in this poem separated through periods. In line 14 states, “it has finally ended.” This is the first period that appears in the poem. You are starting from light, fluffy, flowing snow to now a transition. “The silence is immense,” (15-16) is how the next section is started. This moves from the snow as a whole to a snowy night. Snow takes things away from us like described in this next section. “nowhere the familiar things:stars, the moon, the darkness we expect and nightly turn from.” (18-22), the snow is covering what would normally be in sight. Then relating back to the beginning, the poem seems to suggests that “snow” can blind you from the answers that you seek. This is also the end of the second section, and once again the mood is immediately