Writing

the first snow

always elicits a sense

of wonder

in me

a feeling that

everything is new again

and that the world

is being reborn

entering a new phase

in its annual cycle

of growth

My words don't come

in anything other

than my voice, and

my voice doesn't come

in size-12 Times New Roman;

It comes in butterfly wings and 

cluttered poems and ideas that

You know I think it just struck me I was sitting here reading summer poems tasting raspberry popsicles on my tongue but looking out the window,

 it's snowing out 

and the trees and stone wall and everything,

For the longest time

I have thought magnolias were overrated,

But maybe I had thought that because I had never seen them

Now, they are my favorite flowers

My favorite season has begun

stark white against the grayish brown of stick season

filling in the gaps between colorful fall and crisp winter

well, fall and winter are both crisp

I am chanting verse 9 of my first aliyah,

a bowl of blackberries and apple cinnamon Cheerios beside me,

fingers twirling the spoon, when -

out the window, there is snow.