“The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow”

“The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow” 

“The moon on the breast of the new fallen snow" is a line from the famous Christmas poem, The Night Before Christmas. It’s an odd archaic, Victorian phrasing, but highly imaginative, top of mind last night as I walked home from work under a full-moonlit sky, the white orb casting long tripod shadows from the fir trees in the neighbor’s yards, spidery shadow webs of branches from the trees by the playground. There was the orange square glow of light coming from the front windows of houses—reflected upon the new-fallen snow. There’s always new-fallen snow, these days. The breast of new-fallen snow—is this some reference to the white bosom? Something about purity, something a man would write as an ideal? The ultimate in untouched beauty? The sacred body. A temple, undefiled. Supple, clean, comforting, giving succor.

It was cold and I ran a little to keep warm. The crunch and squeak of snow beneath my boots. And, I thought of this:

It’s true what they say, it is a breast.