Plush and Inviting

The snow is new and virginal, deep
and plush like a vast cloud descended
from the sky, resting with aplomb on
the landscape of the forest. Its smooth
plumpness interrupted haphazardly in
an effort to break trail, leaving indeed a
broken path of depressions within a
narrow border whose sides rise triumphant
in height with no invitation to disturb
its complacent layers, the result of a
record-breaking snowstorm leaving in
its wake the crispness of a mid-winter
day bright with conspicuous and very
ostentatious beauty, transforming even
the most mundane portions of a forest
into a mysterious wonder of nature.
True, the snow's downy depths are not 
congenial to the presence of boots
crushing a path in compressing the
billowing snow, taking its revenge in
unbalancing the snow-hiker's tread to
a lopsided gait that might at any moment
become a slide-prone rest within the
deep and welcoming cushion of white
having no intention of malice, providing
a brief pause in the determined hiker's 
progress across nature's forested domain.