First Snowfall

In the darkening sky of a first snowfall,

the stillness grows even more still, more silent

as birds tuck into themselves against the cold

and the squirrels curl into their burrows;

 
and in the gathering silence, falling snow
is the only sound we hear, a softness raining,
snow brushing clear the air around it,
the hush of winter’s world settling white;

the only other sound, unheard, is ourselves, hearts beating,

curled and tucked into our own burrows, into ourselves,

our faces reflected in the glass we peer through, listening
to the stillness, to the soft hush of first snow falling.