Shoveling Snow

The world is quiet this morning after the snowstorm. The city feels cloaked and protected by snow.

Sounds outside are muffled.

Furnaces come on, and curls of steam and smoke rise from every snow-clad roof in the neighborhood. It looks like we’re living in a small village and everyone is cooking breakfast on wood stoves.

The entire city and the surrounding countryside are white with snow. Undisturbed snow coats the roads. Snow covers the mailboxes and rooftops.

Black tree trunks and branches brush haiku across the white paper landscape.

Dawn arrives clear and cold. The rising sun sends yellow rays through the blue air that make the land glow. The frozen world sparkles. My boots creak and crunch on the snow as I shovel a path from the house to the road.

People emerge from their homes to shovel, and blink at the brightness of the white land. We wave to each other, talk about how this is a good snow, not a wet snow that would make our backs ache, but a snow with enough weight on the shovel that we know we’re doing work. There is fellowship among those who shovel snow.

A male cardinal flies up to the feeder; its red seems impossibly rich.

Bundled in a thick winter coat, I pause in my shoveling to listen to this place, to the stillness of heart in the presence of snow.