All that snow promises so much melting I can hardly wait to see the water rushing rushing to get out of here down to the Atlantic as fast as it can. Greed takes over: you know there’s more and longer pleasure to be had if you drag it out until that moment, slowly creeping up to it while savoring the intensity of building momentum. But what you really want is everything to start happening all at once so you can completely immerse yourself and know of nothing other any more.

Of course the agony of watching ice melt is the best that could possibly happen – well, almost. The best is when rain changes the game entirely erupting in color and bringing back the lush scent of pines and water and rotting leaves along with a hint of the earth buried under eighteen inches of snow and ice yet.

Everything dark touching snow is digging itself a hole, everything not on it drips. I poke my snowshoe through the ice in my impatience to get as close to the edge as I can to see the water and the ice and the rushing of the stream all melting and melting and running into each other making it all so rich I could cry for longing, longing for what I don’t know perhaps for being that small child finding snow and running water for the first time.