Robert Frost: "Dust of Snow"

This is a short poem by Robert Frost, but it speaks of something important--the way small or seemingly inconsequential events can affect us even though the event itself has really nothing in common with its effect.  Why does this affect the narrator the way it does?

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.  


I think Frost's genius is in his ability to see the little things that are of real consequence though few of us see them at the time.  His poetry isolates those moments, those events, and shows us what we have missed.   

Perhaps next time we may be more observant.