Tutored by Snow

Snowy Tutorial

I remember pristine
Snow
Falling like filigree
From a buttermilk sky
Piling against fence posts
Blanketing sidewalks
Muting sound.

Christmas lights
Artfully decorating shrubs
And brush
Glowed softly
Beneath the freezing mantle.

I was a young man
Holding the hand
Of my first girlfriend
And the moment was
Magic.

Suddenly I understood
Life
Its complexities
Simplicities
Its random connections
And profound intentions.

But more than landscape
Was snowed that December eve.

It would be decades
Before I learned:

Poor choices arrive
In gleaming presentations

Warm bodies camouflage
Cold hearts

Beautiful music can hide
Discordant undertones.

I am getting older
More cynical by the hour
But wiser by the minute.

As beautiful as it may be
Sometimes snow is just snow.