Fresh Snow

"Well, I know now.
I know a little more how much a simple thing
like a snowfall can mean to a person."

-- Sylvia Plath, The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath

Apple in winter 1-2-14

"In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago."

-- Christina Rossetti, "In the Bleak Midwinter"

"The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches."

-- e.e. cummings

I have two small apple trees in my backyard. The branches are bare and all of the apples are gone -- either eaten, sauced, or fallen to the ground and abandoned.

Except for this guy. He's still hanging in there.

We got a fresh snowfall for the first day of the new year, and the snow kind of swaddled everything like a newborn's soft blanket. It gave this apple a fluffy, silly little hat.

I know that Earth's cold, hard bones are sleeping underneath. And I know that eventually this pristine landscape will turn ugly and bleak, sagging into that awful muddied gray of despair. But today, Earth looks snuggly and tucked in.

Not everybody loves the snow. That's OK. Go ahead. Love it or hate it. 

But for me, for today, snow is a good thing.