The Mid-Winter Forest

The snow is plush and billows like foam on

the ocean of the forest floor this mid-winter 

day. The scene is eye-wateringly luminous 

in competition with the early afternoon sun 

itself afloat on that other ocean of blue above

the forest below, completing the landscape 

that extends from heaven to Earth. It is a scene 

reminiscent of the firmament's billowing-light 

cloud formations loosing wind-blown showers 

of snow in a blizzard of frozen flakes. The 

icy atmosphere has frozen the stream winding 

through the forest. From the forest canopy trees 

lean their light- and warmth-starved crowns gratefully 

toward the sun illuminating the woods. In the

understory not a movement, not a sound from

forest creatures seeking sanctuary from the

cold, fitfully dreaming of spring's arrival.