There’s a biting cold in the air and it attacks my fingers,
But I put on gloves and it seems to calm itself down,
Lightly pecking at my exposed face, only, and turning it blush red.
I can feel the wind ripping at me, but I do not falter
I am the snow that whips around me,
The trees that stand before me
The mountain that my feet bore into
And I cannot be knocked down.

There’s a bright blue sky up above
And the puffy white clouds match the fresh snow on the ground.
There’s piles of it, everywhere,
And the wind blows it in drifts so the land has mountains on top of mountains
That will disappear in but a gust of wind.
The trees barely sway, even though the wind whips,
Even though we are on the top of a mountain where nature is most exposed
They stand tall, sway only when it suits them to sway
They’ve been here for too long to be moved by the whims of young winter breezes.

It smells like winter.
There’s no other way to describe it,
My entire nose slightly freezes, and with every breath the cold jets up higher
There’s tree bark and fresh snow and pine needles
But together all I see when I close my eyes is mountains, everywhere,
Covered in snow, feet of it, white as far as the eye can see.

There’s this silence to the world, too,
Even though the wind is screaming and the snow is blowing
Nature is muted in its brilliant sounds
And it somehow makes it more brilliant than ever.
I find that I am at peace in the way that I feel when I sit under the stars at night
Except maybe more-so, because there’s nothing ponderous about the snow today
It just exists, and is beautiful, and my heart swells with content
I’m not forced to try and understand the universe
Because the blue hue of the sky and the sun that reflects harshly on the white world all around me
Lets me pretend that there is nothing but me and the mountains in all the universe.

I want to sit here forever, I think
Even though I will encounter an icy death this way.
It doesn’t seem like such a bad way to go,
Responsibilities carried away by the wind and covered in mounds of snow,
My heart finally at rest from its constant heavy beating
Instead pounding in time with the rustle of the leaves.
My head is clear, that’s all I know
That’s all I ever have to know.
There is nothing else, nothing ever
I am light
So light I could fly
And something about the snow all around me
The forest of trees before me,
I think I might try.