Winter’s Change

My fingers sting with sharp cold.
Ah yes, this beauty comes at a cost. 
The evening’s powder snow purifies the morning landscape
And takes the last hint of life from the rose that had hung on into January.
And as the first light burns at the distant end of all I can see
The ghostly white turns to reflect the rosy warmth
Deceiving perhaps -- still just as frozen as it was before --
Or beginning just barely its slow decent into the ground.  
I walk with gentle care
For each step dents the holy surface
And mars the sweet chilled blanket.  
I have no more intent to change the snow 
Than the snow desires to burn its ice into my skin,
Yet we both do what we do not mean to do 
And change comes. 
For I cannot but gravitate down into the earth
And the new snow cannot but be snow.    
Then, without a warning, a dusting from a holly tree bowed with the weight
Breaks the silence without a sound but with a glitter dancing in the still air.  
The sun glows yellow in the transformation as snow is not snow but air
Floating with glory.
Was it a  bird that gave the snow it’s new way?   
It was too gentle a touch to have been a clumsy squirrel.  
There was no wind.
Perhaps it was an angel speaking.
There is something in this morning that warns of death 
And dances new life.
Something that hammers resurrection into dying flesh.
Something. 
Perhaps.  
So too, perhaps, I can be more than one who dwells in winter snow,
More than one whose toes, unfeeling, longing for a warm fire, sink through to the soil.
Speak to me angel.
Speak.
That I may hover in the morning sun
And glow.