1) there is no one else around.

2) nature (the environment) is hostile to survival.

The opposing connection, for example, might be fishing in a fast moving creek and feeling the tug of the fishing line as a connection with the creek current, the creek as a result of the topography, to the geography, to a million years of geo-history, etc. all integrated with the individual in an instant insight.

This poem is so short and simple, but it puts you right into the author’s shoes.

While I hate cold, I love snow- at night when it makes everything look so bright and clean and untouched and when nobody’s around. The poem puts you right there.

These lines are all straightforward statements of fact, including the title, until “I feel its cold iron” which is a bit more nuanced and personal. Then he puts me visually into the driver’s seat, a very positive effect. I can see your questioning the ambiguity of the last line where he “will waste more time,” but by this time I am so totally with him, wanting to prolong the lovely experience. Such economy of words is startling to have such power.
.-= Alice Shapiro´s last blog ..A Cappella Books – Reading 9/30 =-.

I’m mulling over the open question you posit there. The swirls of snow are mentioned before the driving, so it is as if that’s what’s causing the speaker drive on. At least the swirls and the speaker are both moving aimlessly.

Another thing that strikes me is how the last line can be read. Can’t it be read as meaning both (paraphrasing) 1) I will drive around to waste more time and 2) If I drive around more time will be wasted?

It seems like such a clear sentence, but it undercuts itself rather marvelously (unless I am reading it completely wrongly).
.-= Ario´s last blog ..Pretty, pretty tealeaves. =-.

I definitely think that “driving” is meant to evoke “swirls of snow,” inasmuch as the wind is driving them; how much the speaker is in control of his movement – is this what total freedom is like? – is an open question.

What I do mind is when people attack others on my site: the comment has been deleted.

I’d like to add that driving around and waste more time really stood out for me. Doing the functional thing (having to mail a letter) is one thing, but – pursuant to Heidegger – living is as much about being in the world, dwelling in the landscape and aware of oneself than mere production. I’m vaguely thinking of Heidegger’s later pronouncements on financial capitalism, which he said was die Erde entrissen.

Yet driving around has me really piqued. Why not walking (apart from the aestethic problem of the triple w-alliteration)? Driving suggests speed and for me has more a sense of questing, but I’m not sure yet.

Anyway, great poem and good post. Really got me thinking upon this early morning.
.-= Ario´s last blog ..Pretty, pretty tealeaves. =-.