The speaker is an observer with an active imagination who watches a blizzard unfold from the warmth of her home. Protected from the freezing elements, she views the natural world with whimsical curiosity rather than fear. She acts as a stand-in for an artist or creator, interpreting the chaotic weather through a rapid succession of metaphors and similes until the quiet of the storm lulls her to sleep.

The snow acts as a heavily personified, living presence outside the speaker's window. It begins as a clumsy, stuttering nuisance that tangles the trees before transforming into an artistic force shaping the outside world like a pointillist painter. At its most intense, it resembles a hungry white bear splitting open the winter hive, but it eventually settles into an alphabet of silence that covers the environment like a thick blanket.