the snow was deep
deeper than I’d anticipated
I had a long, long way yet to trudge.

sinking to mid-thigh,
heart making do despite the shock
to its otherwise dormant existence,
the whiteness around me,
the stillness,
beheld a loveliness
too profound to imagine.

if I died out here,
alone,
it would be a death
couched in serenity.

and who could argue with that?