Ice hangs from the trees as worn paths are hidden behind a white sheet of snow. Everything glistens in the faint light that breaks through sliver and white clouds. An Owl can be heard calling in a distant grove of trees as it hides in the dark wooded cavern. The streams are frozen but you can hear them creak and groan. The North wind weakens and begins to subside blowing snow drifts in to blinding curtains of white. Ever so slowly the earth turns around and begins to shift. The hand of the cold miser that counts every snowflake begins to loosen its grip. A South wind comes in and the clouds begin to part. The towers of frozen water falls with Ice that hangs down like the Columns  of a Cathedral begin to drip. Trickles come together and form small streaks of water that cut grooves in the ice. Day by day the cold recedes, until foot prints that were frozen into the ground begin to turn into mush. The forest begins to lose it's sheen of silver and brown limbs spring up as the weighty snow falls off. They reach ever higher for the sun as they embrace it's warmth. As the last vestiges of white evaporate, small buds appear as sap rises. Winter falls away and spring finds it's place again.