The eve of snow:

Now it’s only waning white

As a blanket of darkness-

Darkness that is bright,

Slowly fades

Into the sky.

The eve of snow:

Its aroma descends from the atmosphere,

The scent of a chill

Which dispels all fear;

The squalls have come-

Winter is here.

At long last,

The dawn of snow:

All is staged in effervescent shimmers,

Scintillating words made manifest

In the cold crispness of the step

Imprinted in the expanse of

A vast and newborn world.

–

Snow,

It’s anticipatory;

We wish for a blank page

To start a new story.

White’s the snow

What’s beneath is unknown,

The past is trapped there

Hidden by the blank brightness;

The future is the present’s own.

Only remember, is my caveat,

After every blank bright darkness of snow

Comes the sun:

All can be disinterred, and everything shown.

–

When snow is gold

And it shimmers in the cold,

They are quite nearly embers

From the Refiner’s Fire.

The little glimmers

No more with the source,

That has been raised up by the force:

The force that is Love;

That which comes for the being

And at the expense of the being

To make it whole,

Complete and perfect,

As the Refiner Himself.

So in this cold

The gold embers of the old

Glisten

As a tribute to the being

And to the Refiner; it has been

Made pure by the Fire.

By Elisabeth Smith ‘28, Assistant Editor-in-Chief

28esmith@montroseschool.org