Snow didn’t often fall where I lived
A fire rather than a flurry, flames rather than flakes
The clouds were stretched cotton balls
So empty and pale against a cerulean canvas
Life was like the weather there
So often the same

I witnessed a blizzard once
Through the scratched glass of an airplane window
I tapped in time with every frigid gust of wind
The silence was deafening as we soared away
Nature reminding us that all it took is a butterfly’s wings

Snow was an idea defined with Ss
so Soft, so Silvery, so Silent
You forget how wet it is, how cold it is
How when the world warms just a touch
The wonderland fades
replaced by a frigid swamp of icy mud and glass-pane leaves
You forget blue-tipped fingers and steamy sighs
It’s funny the faith we have in crystals of ice

It snows where I live now
We lounge in tightly wrapped coats
Clad in hand-knit scarves and winter boots that glint with reflected light
Our laughter echoes off of the sides of snow-streaked sleds
Sequestered, answering only to the rise and fall of the sun
It is so easy to forget the cold, the wet, the quiet
So we do