We wake, staying over at friends, and the day is heavy with falling snow. The large, slowly falling flakes flicker and shift and gently touch the ground. There is no wind.

Every since I was a child, such scenes bring within me a quiet calm, a deeply settled peace.

Too old now(?) to make angels in the snow or even to trek through waste high drifts, but I remember. O, I remember.

The seasons come and go, bringing their own fragile and stirring beauty. But unlike the car, or an old suit or pants, we cannot trade them in and get a new one when the old are tattered and worn, broken and with parts missing.

Not yet, anyway. But someday . . .