The first snowfall comes like an unplanned ritual. We never know when, but when it happens we stop. Struck again by what seems a sudden and numinous change. Wasn’t it just yesterday the grass was green and in need of cutting? Now the Japanese Maple’s blood red leaves script their legacy on a scroll of pure white.

Everything is stripped away. We pull our sweaters tighter. In no other season do we feel the fragile boundary of our skin. So thin against a dagger wind. The blood rushing away from fingers to protect the heart.

Winter is the season where we meet our hungers. We think of what we have lost and what lies ahead. The dark comes early. We want to howl our loneliness. We long for endless bread and steaming cups of tea.

And yet…And yet..A dried rose in snow against a white fence. The brown and gray sparrow alighted on a naked branch. Startling clear icicles festooned on the roof edge. Crisp air awakening our lungs.

In the evening heat curls from tiny houses reaching its fingertips to the stars.

And we gaze there too-

And know that we are not separate.