Near zero in the small hours, Orion leaping out of the trees in the crackling dark, then warming all morning, the air growing heavier, wood smoke from the chimney trailing southwest, train loud in the valley, closer, first a fine shower of ice, then flakes, then rafts, filing our footsteps.
We want this. We want deep drifts, closing the roads, slowing us. We want the wires down and the dish buried, no choice but to tend to necessities, to stand still as the snow piles up on our shoulders, looking deep into the sky to watch it come, heeding the call of quiet.
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