Wee little snowflakes drift past the window, they are joined by a few more and a few more, until there are uncountable numbers. Pausing to look at them and being child like wonder, each one different no two exactly the same.. They are magically drifting down to whiten the ground as if someone had dusted it with powdered sugar. Snowflakes have been compared to fairys drifting to earth, sparkling and floating in mid air until they cover the landscape and hid it flaws.
The first and last snowfalls of each winter capture my attention and imagination.
Wistful daydreams when time stands still ever filled with romanticized ideas, a snow globe world ever too fleeting. Cozy by the fireside with a good book or whatever your ideal might be. I don't want to think about the realities of winter, I want to think about the ideal. the greeting card winter scenes. Images that float thru my dreams of when I was a child snuggled under piles of old quilts heaped on to my white iron bed and drifted off to sleep watching the stars twinkle in the bitter cold night sky. The occasional whiff of coal smoke that came when someone slung a scuttle filled with coal and remnants of the days activities into the stove before they retired for the night, and I slipped into dreams.
Winter progressed, getting colder, the snow getting deeper until the days started to lengthen and the sun's rays strengthened. and on that day that one could feel the warmth of the sun on ones face, and the first daffodil foliage pushed thru the frosty ground. Know that each day is that much closer to the last snow of the season.
At long last snow of this season this could be here. Again the snowflakes begin to fall, this time they cover up the browned grass, shriveled leaves, and swelling buds. Strengthening sunshine will clear it away. But I watch it with wonder, and again I am caught up in the fanciful flights of snowflakes, and the minute beauty for each melting flake. Flakes that sparkle as they drift thru the sunlight. I dare , only briefly, to look back on the snug and silent days of winter, before the earth and I rush headlong in to the revelry and enchantments of summer. Something new begins bounded by the enchantments of first and last snowfalls.
