A Snowy Day in April

It was only a sprig of red berries poking through a mantle of snow. But something in their quiet defiance— so small, so sure, so bold— stopped me in rushing mid-stride, as if beauty had broken some sealed place inside me, and light, unbidden, had found a way in. The world went quiet around me except for the whispered ticking of snow melting on my coat. The berries didn’t beckon— they simply serenely endured, like a secret held in plain sight. I didn’t kneel, but my heart did and time loosened for a moment. The air was full of watching. Even the light seemed to listen. My class had already started and the prof raised his eyebrows at me, so I told him about the berries— he shot me a skeptical look, but that didn’t matter a bit. Some moments don’t explain themselves, they speak in silence anyway. I sat in the back smiling, still picturing the berries long after the lecture began.