Night snow

Being five or six, sitting at an open window, at night
Wrapped in a blanket
The cold air bracing

Watching the diagonal sheets of snow, illuminated by the streetlights, fall to the motionless, pristine thickening drifts.
Soundless
In the day, men, women, hurrying

Buses, roaring to life, jostling their bobbing patrons

Automobiles, large rounded hoods, shining, children, shouting, jumping, running

Here, in her room, alone

The others within
She sat in the dark, consumed by the dark, at peace

Motionless
Hoping to preserve the moment
As if an eternal snowflake
A creak of light, a sound, a demand
Her aerie flooded with light, the wrist descends, the casement shuddering with the flourish
Now, her vista obscured by fogging glass
The delicate filaments of snow, beyond reach, brushed away as if a spider’s web