The Dominion of Winter

Snow; it falls in tender, tiny flakes
of crystallized stars, patterning
winter on this northern geography.
It punctuates the atmosphere
with its extraordinary fragrance
its certain promise of an altered
landscape, chill and softly bright.

Even as snow drifts gently below
the sun erupts, shattering the
landscape with arrows of light
before receding again under
steel-hued and -purposed clouds
leaving the wind to scatter the
lofty coverlet. Last night a

renascent wind emulating an
earlier wind-day phenomenon
on the penultimate day of January
blasted February into the new
calendar with fierce squalls
of snow in dominion over a densely
black sky, moon bright, suddenly

obscured by yet another capricious
winter delight, aiding the shy
landscape in transition to
mysteriously disappear
from temporary human sight.

Mankind's hubristic conceit of
challenging nature dissolved by
random acts of magisterially
assuming power. Assumption
of benevolence set casually aside.