Fancy Flies Like Snow

Sometimes when it snows, my fancy flies....

When I told them I want to be more like the snow, they called me foolish.

They—the watchers, worriers, waiters, hurriers—had never stopped to notice the things I did. I couldn't blame them. If they had not seen the things I had, snow was nothing but a blocker of cars, a jammer of traffic, a danger, a distresser, a thing that kept one from going out and another from coming in. Snow was a biter, nipper, spoiler, killer. All nasty, ugly names for a crushingly beautiful thing.

To one who will not go at a snow-pace, snow is foolishness. To one who never slows down, the secret truth of it is hidden: that snow is honest; that it is an artist; that it tells stories.

So when I said that I want to be more like snow, they laughed and rushed on their senseless way, fretting against peaceful things. No matter.

For one day they will hear my honesty, taste integrity that crunches white and crystalline between the teeth, and see the snow. It will blind them.

One day they will find themselves surrounded with a sudden beauty, their barrenness covered by a loving word, their sere fields sifted over with quiet art made in the wing-ends of life. Their curtailed words and fell mood will be eased by the same innocence they despised. Beauty, love, art, thrown with a liberal hand to the ones who never deserve it. They will see the snow. It will chill them.

One day they will sit, bound by the spell of my fables. Like bird-tracks, fox-feet, deer-steps, I will show them wonders. I will tell of things their hearts have muttered and spin for them webs of words. The tales to come and the stories past, the dreams they dare not dream, the hopes they knew were dead. And things will awaken, thrum and pierce in their hearts for the Story their being craves.

And I will be snow, and I will gentle them.