Being Winter

I am in awe of the snow.

Sitting in my bed this morning, drinking my coffee in my usual custom, I watch it come down, falling recklessly and heavily out of the sky.

I think I find You in the snow.

You are the white.
Pure, glistening, blinding white in the stillness.

The only sound is the falling, like thousands of hushed brushstrokes.

You are the sound too, aren't You?

And the light, the graceful gray-dressed light, with a soft hand for my flaws, covering all with the comforting murk of rest.

You are here in the cold, reminding me where home is. Hiding Your magic in the plummeting mercury.

And the wind suddenly throws everything into a swirl, sweeping white clouds across, briefly dusting the windowpanes with millions of tiny, individual, uniquely crystallized flakes, taking my breath away with its power. Showing me Your willingness.

And that you know about sweeping me too.

Later, I find You in the strong branches. Bare but unmoving, immobile against the bitter elements. I see roofs caved in, cars waylaid and pipes burst, but my trees remain steady. Stoic promises of the building of a life, the stretching out of roots, the blooming and falling of leaves, and the near-approaching spring.

I find You in the laughter of the children, bundled and packaged in warmth to the hilt by mothers who cannot afford to take the risk. They run and throw, slide and skate, dig and build in the frosty air. Our breath shoots out, visible steam, and I am thinking of the molecules and atoms, the tiny components that make up everything, even my heart and brain, and are fueled by a life force that is You. 

You building in miniature and super sizing it all at once.

I try to simply find winter, but it is not just him that I see. The lines blend and sway in the chilled, gelatin dusk and I find only You instead, holding the reigns to it all, stopping to cup my chin in the frigid night, to stroke my cheek with your cold,white brush, the stars lighting our ballroom moment.

But you are not an only, are you? That would be like saying everything everything. Or You Are. Or I am. But you are I am.

My I am.

My winter I am. 

You are winter.

You are more than green, and life. You are more than autumnal fires and campouts in the thin-aired hills. You are more than fireflies and summer nights of droning bees in busy flight. 

You are here in the cold too. Helping me to understand that you won't leave me. Even when no fruit is on my bare tree, you stay.  Making sense of the frozen and singing along the thaw.

Being winter and promising spring.