First Snow

First snow of the year.

I stand outside, chattering lightly, shovel in hand,
grudging that shovel its grating scrape in my ears,
and on the ground,
where it slashes dark scars in the pure white.

And so I stand, still, in the windless hush,
a hush broken only by the scratching sibilance of flakes on dry leaves,
the soothing whisper of Nature
tucking her children in.

"Sleep, now,", she sighs to us,
"creep beneath my down and rest."

Peace settles through the air,
the peace of surcease
from the grinding rush and bustle.

Foolish humans strive to shake their black paths free of Nature's embrace,
when, to my mind, it would be best,
if we all made like our wild brethren,
and hunkered down to watch the gentle storm through eyes half-slitted with sleep.

Snow is Nature's blanket, her comforter,
drawn over her world,

Or, to use a modern analogy,
snow is Nature's screensaver
keeping the monitors of her creatures' souls
from burning out through too long exposure
to the dead, brown winter world.