FIRST DAY OF WINTER

"On the first day of winter, the earth awakens to the cold touch of itself.  Snow knows no other recourse except this falling, this sudden letting go over the small gnomed bushes, all the emptying trees. Snow puts beauty back into the withered and malnourished, into the death wish of nature and the deliberate way winter insists on nothing less then deference.   Waiting all its life, snow says, "Let me cover you."  ~Laura Lush~