Driving the neighbor girl home tonight, in the dark descended already at five, the headlights illuminated the pristine snow at the roadside; in the first real snowfall of the season, winter has returned with all its familiarity. The truth is, this season is profoundly beautiful, the nights deeply dark, the stars purer than any possible manufactured light.

Winter tugs out the humanness of us, too. In the descending cold, the hearth has genuine meaning: practicality bound into pleasure. In the backseat, the children laughed, the car steamy with the scent of my wet wool sweater, the snow around us gently falling, the merest whispers of winter’s roar yet off in the distance.

I write this by lamplight
holed up for the winter
there it is on the page

– Yosa Buson

Woodbury, Vermont