This morning smelled wet, with frost on the rooftops. I was hoping for snow. It’s falling now. The snow is fine; it falls like a thick mist, but heavier and whiter. The further away you look, the paler everything gets. Snow on the car. Snow on the fallen leaves I haven’t cleaned up yet. Snow on toys left outside for months. Snow on a garden hose. Snow on weeds. Snow on the playhouse. Snow on the rocks filling the old swimming pool. Snow on the neighbor’s stack of green plastic deck chairs. Snow on the unfinished shed on the other side of our barn-red fence. The edges of the asphalt shingles are whiter than their centers. Snow on the rabbit hutch but not on the rabbit. Snow on the closed black grill. The heater kicks on. The flakes are getting bigger. The wind gusts, and a drift falls off the neighbor’s green plastic playhouse roof like salt scattered through the air.
Here, maybe only here–snow as a harbinger of spring.