Finally, Winter

This morning I woke to gray light. Where is the burning sunrise? I wondered, and looked out the window, and it was: snow! This new window, in this new home, looks east into on a narrow yard where a tree stretches twigs across the sky. All the green had gone out of the yard. Snow was still falling, large soft flakes. The sky was white, the yard was white, the tree black, the light cloud-gray.

We dragged ourselves out of bed, put on hats and coats and boots, and tumbled out into the falling white. Later we ate scones, drank tea, played Pictionary. I played with the landlord's Labrador in the backyard while my husband shoveled snow in front. When he sprinkled the salt, small dark circles blossomed around the grains where they landed.

So winter has really come here, at last. I hope the snow stays, to remind me that this is a season, which is bound to come and to go in its time, and that it is a season of softness as well as coldness.