It has been a month now since the snow came. Most of its remains melted away in the slight thaw that saw our daytime highs crest in the thirties until last Saturday’s giddy haze of fifty degrees. Even in that, the ice-snow was slow to go. Even now, some of it stays.

This is especially true of the drifts, despite the slumping shifts that drew them closer to earth. On the north banks of east-running roads, where the winds dumped their loads of powder, there is still sign of the storm. Out on Old 36, west of Highland, the drifts are still six feet deep. It will take more than a few days of barely warming to take them away, more than a few hours of winter sun.

Where the work of the cold is piled high and deep, where the path of the sweeping wind leaves riffles in the snow, it will take a stronger warming, a greater forming of sun to take away the winter. In the soul stung by life’s harsh edge, the heart closed against the killing frost, it takes a surrendering of what is lost before the healing touch can fill the darkness and bring Light.

H. Arnett
1/29/10