Snow in the Rose Garden

The first powdery blanket of winter snow drifts overnight into the walled garden, diffusing the early morning light. Crystals form, dew turns to fine lace, then evaporates.

On the climbing rose, a gentle pink and blush white, droplets form and break. Traces remain like veins or a desert’s dry streams, remnants of waves receding across sand.

The virgin snow glows like a kaleidoscope of pale pinks, soon to become fuel for snowballs, but as of yet, its surface is disturbed only by the tracks of a running fox.