Winter's leave

Last week we received six inches of new snow.  It came down in heavy flakes over the course of an afternoon and evening, covering everything with a woven blanket of white. Not since November have we had this much snowfall, and a part of me realized that despite the headache of shoveling and scraping and waiting for the plows, I had missed it.  I had missed the snow.

I missed the stillness that only a long day of falling snow can give.  Stillness so great it binds everything and everyone within it.  I missed the beauty of frost coating branches and limbs, turning every tree into a chandelier of crystal ice.

I missed the winter nights--how a ground covered in snow can take a full moon's light and radiate it tenfold back to the heavens.  Moonlit snow in winter weakens the boundaries of night and day.  Too bright for night and too dark for day -- a moonlit walk in the heart of winter is treading into myth.

I don't think I could live in a place without winter.  Not for very long, anyway. Despite my anxieties and worries about sicknesses and travel woes, winter is a part of me.  And it always will be.

This small patch of winter weather was short-lived, however.  The sun has come out and the temperature is rising.  The frost is gone and melt water is dripping from the eaves.

It seems that spring is just around the corner.  The sap is running in the trees and geese are filling the sky.  Soon we will open doors and windows and welcome the sun back to our northern land.

And I too will welcome the sun back with open arms.  But not before giving winter a long kiss goodbye.