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

put the readers into the poem with the speaker With this being a monologue and putting these subject words throughout we are putting ourselves into the poem because we are responding to the “us” and “we’s”. So this is how the poet encourages her readers to create our own images as we relate to this poem to our own selves.
The poem simply begins with, "The snow"(line 1) and invites us to imagine this glimpse of snow, anywhere from a simple beautiful snowflake to a dreadful blizzard.

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

around.
Then the mood shifts along with changes in the words.

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

changed.
The poem contains many similes and personifications, and the beginning of this third section is a perfect example, “Trees glitter like castles of ribbons,” (22-24). In these lines, Oliver is describing the trees as some of the most beautiful things in winter because the snow and ice make the trees glisten and create such a peaceful scene. But again the questions appear in this last section. “and though the questions that have assailed us all day remain-” (28-30) Mary has again related these questions back to the snow. The snow has “assailed”; it had struck us just as so many questions do. Then it switches, “walking out now”(31) once you get to the sentence you begin to get anxious and curious to what you are going to see as you are walking out now, and this shift in the nature and direction of Oliver’s language also is a great way to transition to the end. When she writes “into the silence and the light under the trees, and through the fields,” (32-34) she is still building up to the end, so that although you have continued to search for answers to the questions, by the end it “feels like one.” (35) After all of your searching you have finally found what you were looking for and you feel as one, the answer is a part of you.
Our questions are floating like snow that begins to entrances us. Sometimes it is a struggle to our own selves and it can be difficult to try and seek answers. Then snow can create a light or brightness, and just like our questions they can enlighten us so that once we “find the light” and find our answers we seek they become one within us, our own thoughts, beliefs and experiences are within us.