雪之美

The early snows fall soft and white and seem to heal the landscape.There are as yet no tracks through the drifts,no muddied slush in the roads.The wind sweeps snow into the scars of our harvest-time haste,smoothing the brow of hill,hiding furrow and cog and trash in the yard.Snow muffles the shriek of metal and the rasp of motion.It convers our flintier purposes and brings a redeeming silence,as if a curtain has fallen on the striving of a year,and now we may stop,look inward,and redisvover the amber warmth of family and conversation.

At such times,locked away inside wall and wolen,lulled by the sedatives of wood-smoke and candlelight,we recall the competing claims f nature.We see the branch and bark of trees,rather than the sugar -scented green of their leaves.We look out the window and admire the elegance of ice crystal,the bravely patient tree leaning leafless into the wind,the dramatic shadows of the stooping sun.We lok at the struvture of things,the geometry of branch and snowflake,family and deed.

Even before the first snow,winder has started to make us see the world differently.We watch the lawn settle into the sleep of frost and the last leaf shake on the oak,and feel the change.At night the skies are cold and clear,and star shine like the dreams of serpents.The hillsides turn brown and gray.Dark clouds settle on the mountain ridges.Then comes the snow.When snowflake drifts the road,we head inddors and resign ourselves to the quiet crackle of the wood fire.The example of the woodpile and the well-stocked larder tells us that we can achieve what we dream,and winter brings us long,silent nights to dream on.