The Hush of Snow

Come my friends, join with me

as we attempt to capture winter and snow

in poetry and prose.

I still remember those evenings –

when youth raged and passion flared.

The air was heavier before the storm,

the sky bruised and purpled in fading daylight.

There was a crispness, as if it carried snow’s promise.

First they fluttered, little flakes like grains of sand,

shaken from a cosmic saltshaker seasoning the land.

Streetlights flickered awake to better bear witness,

electric hum rising as the first fall melted on contact.

I walked out, hood down, clouds of breath, hands in pockets.

There was a hush to the world then –

beneath lamps revealing the fast-falling flakes.

Insulated, suspended, the sound muffled.

Snow gathered on my hair, slipped down my neck,

and whispered the promise of school’s reprieve.

Those walks were crisp with crunching ice,

fresh-fallen or plowed in haphazard heaps.

A blanket pulled over the world,

nose frosting fast into sniffles and suspense.

Magic felt possible –

that I might step into Narnia

through a wardrobe in Henry Law Park.

My favorite nights were when

the wind whipped the flurry so fierce

I could see only a step ahead –

as if I stood in a bubble of time,

where the lost might be found,

and wonder alone could sustain.

It has been long since those days.

Snow falls still on my grayer hair

as I dream of Winters past –

the ones of my youth,

of magic and mystery.

And I thank God for Winter,

in all its varied form –

in peace, and in the storm.

If you felt the chill of winter as you read my piece, please consider sharing it with another soul, that way we can grow our little family of friends that read and pray together.