First Snow

You barely notice when it begins. The moment not epiphany, but intuition. You look up and the light is sifted, sieved. Swirling thumbprints of white blur the air. The snow touches you absent-mindedly, her attention on something else, her affection real.

Walking back to your apartment, you take a shortcut over the hidden grass, delight in the squelch of your feet in all that unmarked clarity, the stamp of your footprint making the winter official. As though to have walked where no one else had ventured in the few short hours since morning were claim enough, and glory. As though it were sufficient that this day existed, unmarred by your petty insolence, a splendor too vivid for your passing feet to profane.