WHEN THE QUIET FILLS WITH LIGHT

First snow of winter fell during the night and is still falling. Kind of late, even on the mountaintops; the first white dusting was only a couple of weeks ago. When it's still dark and you're just waking you can tell by the deeper silence that it has snowed; then the quiet fills with light and seems even thicker...

When you hear that silence, peep out the window and behold that whiteness covering all you see, something changes in you as when you were a kid, that ancient winter quickening, a new flow you can feel, a current native to the bone, this new cold white adventure just beginning to build, for there are things to be done, special things-- snow to be shoveled, outdoor items to be covered or moved into snowless places (good thing the snow tires are on -- a smile), break out the Sorels, the heavy socks and gloves, get the snowcoat, thick hat, shovels, heavy brooms, car brush, window scrapers, cover the wheelbarrow, put the ladders away, bury the garden faucets and hoses beneath mounds of leaves, stack more firewood closer to the house before the snow builds its deadline.

The dawning birdsongs are sharper and clearer - more frugal; energy is at a premium -
Appetites change too, as a result of all this action, this freshness of air scrubbed through the night by trillions of fine-edged waterflakes; hunger gets big, the body gets ready for what is to come, the work and the fuel, the food and the firewood, the lifting and shoveling and hauling, fighting the doubtless wind, pushing through the deepening snow, ice to be chipped away, like old days of waiting...