Love In the Silence
While the storm gathers, the world waits.
Wind rises and falls like the breath of the cosmos.
The mountain turns blue, not with cold but with the shadow of low-hanging clouds, not yet low enough to be delivered of the snow that whirls and dances deep inside.
Too warm yet for snow; too quiet for rain.
The willows weep straight down into the mud of a pond gone dry, as though imploring the rain to come. The spruce is less steady, trembling in the occasional gust, then settling back to keep its needles close.
And the gate that keeps out nothing that wants to pass, it is stolid, staid, and steadfast in its stubborn refusal to give way, even in the face of the gathering storm.
But most of all, at this moment, there is silence.
No snow, yet traffic muffled and conversation muted.
There is no need: no need for sound, for words. Not in this place.
There is love in the silence.