snow

I hate winter.
I hate winter.
I hate winter.

It is February.   A blanket slumped over my shoulders, I gaze through the window on what appears to be the depths of Cocytus....as detailed by Dante himself:  "the deepest level of hell, where the fallen angel Satan himself resides. His wings flap eternally, producing chilling cold winds that freeze the thick ice."  It is morning, when color will emerge from the gray twilight, and, yet, it remains mostly gray.

I could continue to explore my feelings for the dark, dead, soul-sucking ice-gray pit of depression, rendering me nothing less than fetal for 12-14 weeks of the year....
I could...
However, I will acquiesce.  For now, I shall admit, in a quiet whisper...barely heard above my throbbing contempt....the exception to all the distresses this season brings, and pay homage to the miracle of snow.

“I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says "Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland & Through the Looking-Glass

How, I ask you, can one despise a phenomenon involving crystalline confetti of purity?  Dancing, spinning, floating like frosty feathers in the empty cold.  Utterly tender and silent, suspended by its own delicate nature until lying down, like a whisper, into a lacy veil, piling effortlessly until the landscape is overtaken by the ubiquitous plume.

When the snow tumbles down, as seen through window pane or windshield, it creates a mood, fluttering like candlelight on a cloudy day.  Light and weightless, or recklessly driven, it layers and blankets and tucks in all that is small and loose and lost, and hushes the mourning of what has been sacrificed to the darkness and covers the stark nakedness, lulling a dormant landscape quietly to sleep.

The first timid flakes appear from thin air, little more than imagination.  And, you peer heavenward, searching for the birth of a snowflake.  You will find that it bursts to life from within an infinitely deep steely gray void  And, the snow cascades, each flake exploding into being, from the nothing gray, in that place above, just beyond the reach of fingertips, only mere seconds before it pelts dewy kisses on steely foreheads and velvet cheeks and perches like a frozen teardrop on hesitant eyelashes.

Sugared roadways become alive with serpentine trails, twisting and writhing until it coagulates and packs down in the tread of traffic.  Children suit up to dive in and taste and roll and slide, while I find solace in what is warm and cozy and slow, in a life of white-hot, blinding speed, and it becomes universally proper to fall limp amongst blankets and pillows while the exhale of a steaming drink fogs my nose...