Rejoice in the snowfall

‘Ha’ you mark’d but the fall o’ the snow, before the soil hath smutch’d it?’

Words of Ben Jonson, read when I was 16, that return unbidden to my mind when I look out across the snowy garden before footprints disturb the purity.

Snow is blessed by the gratitude of children saved from having to go to school, to the office, to the factory, the building site, the meeting. Rejoice in the snow that causes the common way to hold its breath and insists upon toboggans and fantastical myth-monsters sculpted in the hedgerow by the wind.

Bless the sparkle, bless the purity, bless the cold, bless the snowmen and the snowballs, bless the children laughing, bless the sheep buried in drifts blowing breath-holes and waiting for rescue, bless the birds hopping light on fragile surfaces, bless the breathing space in the battle, bless the magic and the beauty, bless the weather.