Yesterday's Dream

Now each new snowfall no longer stayed, leaving its freshness for but an hour or a day. Around the trees dark circles formed, and from their bases outwards melted the snow. Now areas of earth did form, while the snow decayed. It was not the snow of the colder times, not even the type found in thaw and freeze-- it was the kind that told of Winter's end, of melting by heat.

Then one Noon time, following a flurry of snow, I walked through the forest again. Everywhere I saw the signs, lodged in the limbs or lying in the depths, the freshness of new snow. But the sun was at work, melting all it touched. In other places it was the same.

Further within the woods I saw a spectral sight: Here the sun had revealed the remnants of soft fresh snow. The fluffy masses of white seemed a fountain emerging from the earth, flowing out across the ground. For a moment I remembered when such effects were common in the darkness of a wintry day.

But I gazed at this passing scene, as when the last wave of foam had lighted upon the beach, but had lost its power to remain, and now was drawn back into the depths from where it came.