The Snow’s Lesson

Monday, 12 February 2007.

There is such a purity and magic to fresh-fallen snow. It’s midnight, and I'm alone, surveying the beauty that only I am seeing.

I look behind me, as I meander, and see my footprints resting in the powder behind me, marring the serenity of the scene. Is that what I am then, as an observer? By observing this wonderful scene, I destroy it—it can never be appreciated the same way again.

But, in the same token, if I had not walked through it, had not created those burning footsteps, there would be no beauty there in the first place, for there was no one to view it, and ponder.

So I guess what I don’t understand is, where does the beauty lie? Is it in the purity of the fresh, unbroken snow? Or rather, is it in the footprints left behind, and the story they tell?

Lavender, the Lonely Pink Elephant