This has been a fairly snow-less winter so far. One Sunday morning writing prompt, however, dealt with the white stuff. Here's the result.
Write 12 ways of looking at snow.
One
an arbitrator between autumn and spring
keeping storm scores and stats on plummeting temperatures
Two
a cat burglar sneaking in on a passing cold front,
stealing color, hiding the tricycle and the dog’s dish,
disguising the starkness of trees with fluff,
covering its tracks as it leaves
Three
a bully, sweeping in on a fierce wind,
a white fury casting cold spells,
spinning and dancing like a colorless gypsy
tapping its tambourine fingers against the window panes
Four
A blanket of silence covering sky and earth,
flung out and floating down silently
in heaps and wrinkles
Five
an ice challenge, wicked, cold, and inhospitable,
hard as rock, unyielding even to the distant sun
Six
a nightmare like a thief in the night
stealing the familiar, leaving an expanse of
nothingness where light was
Seven
a gossamer dream, a fairy tale, a story of
eternal cold dressed in ermine, of diamond faceted jewels
that glitter under a pale moon
Eight
a blustery uncle, all noise and fake promises
who rushes in, pulls out his watch, and says, “I must
hurry,”
as he dashes off
Nine
a lingering guest, one who arrives unexpectedly, expects a
room and food, languishes on the sofa with a hand to her
head,
her scarf trailing across the roads and fields and tangling
in the branches of the trees
Ten
an artist with a monochromatic palette, painting with broad
strokes
Eleven
an eraser, an impenetrable veil, a swirl of opaque white, a
myriad of genies
escaped and coalesced, their arms and bodies so entwined
that no light
pierces their white shadows
Twelve
a silence so profound one can hear only his own heartbeat
counting the seconds,
his own blood swishing to the same tempo of snowflakes
falling on his sleeve
