Winter Is Icumen In

It has been snowing modestly and in tiny flakes for the past three or four days. One day it fell glittering in the glow of the street lamps like flecks of gold dust settling in a stream; on another it was like pieces of ash driving through the air above and around a bonfire; and today it is like the minuscule white flies or gnats hovering and swooping over the deeper grass in summer. The quantity of snow covering the ground is not so impressive, but ragged lines of it are cleaving to the tree branches outside the apartment windows, the rooftops are dusted, cars powdered, and the grass on the street median only visible in dark patches through the white.

If I overcome my laziness I'll crack a volume of Henry Thoreau's essays and reread "A Winter Walk" (?), because it describes the snowy landscape extremely well. Living beside a thoroughfare in the city the descriptions of hallowed silence might not ring a bell as much (besides which I haven't been outside the apartment in five or so days), but as the platonic ideal even those have a certain relevance.