The First Snow (2019)

by Joy Rollins, Class of 2020

It was cold

Too cold

Too cold for anything

Two layers

Three layers

It wasn’t enough

It was never quite enough

But despite the cold

Despite the cold

It never snowed

The ground lay bare

And dead

And cold

The wind stung

The wind bit

The wind put the bare branches of the trees into a kind of twisted dance

All of them dead

All of them cold

But then

One cold day

It wasn’t as cold

The wind slowed

The trees stilled

And from the clouds came a flurry of white flakes

They lazily drifted down into a big fluffy pile

Doors opened

Children ran out into the snow

It was still cold

But it wasn’t as cold anymore