Snow and Light

The weather-guessers say more snow’s on the way and I’m not alone with mixed feelings. The sight of soundless white falling to a ground deadened by autumn’s work, covering up loss in a cold caressing grace overlays the longing for a warming light, guiding me out of a long, sighing night-time filling up days and days of winter. But snow dresses up the drab and empty, the naked and alone…

…walks and whiles of wandering in white, building laughter and balls of wonder ice flying through the air, smacking on jackets filled with life, children growing up in this light…

… a quiet vigil posing against the backdrop of winter’s cloak, guiding soul, filling feltness whole beyond the pain of stripped trees, blades of grass bowing in colorless submission to this rest, rest, resting before renewal…when comes the sun shining, melting, felling loss and planting seeds for spring…

[two plates hold flame on my mantel today: one in memory of a soul whose light lives on in my heart ‘though her life has passed into the next expression, beyond our tangible reach. the other in support of lives fighting to thrive in the aftermath of violence.]