White Tempest

It billows and shifts, blows
this way and that, the incandescent
veil of flakes, each a unique and
lovely droplet of water blasted
by the frozen atmosphere into a
work of art. In its sheer force
of numbers inundating all
that lies below the tumult of
the sky above releasing
its frozen treasure, hidden
by the tumbling, twisting
of the wind-driven snow
so fiercely abundant that
all it blankets assume shapes
only nominally identified
in their ghostly, white-transformed
guise absorbing the creeping
twilight and exhaling a
scintillating play of light on
the variegated planes of those
inexhaustible starry symbols
of nature's gifts from her
storehouse of tricks and treats.