I look out my window at the beautiful snow on the ground, falling flakes light as confectioner’s sugar. 

I have loved this wintertime with so much snow. Seeing photos online of snow scenes from around the country and the world. Snow everywhere.

I love how sunshine paints blue shadows of trees on the snow canvas. I love my trees as if they were people – nice, wise people with only good intent.

       Still, I wonder why this snow- so heavy, so cold, so everywhere this particular winter. Recent winters have seen no snow in my city. The poet/writer in me thinks metaphor. 

In Mt. Olympus, the God of Raining is raging. 

“I will punish them for their evil!” he shouts to his wife. “I will rain down frogs. The frogs will destroy their crops. They will have to tend their fields instead of  making terrible mischief. Evil. Yes, evil. Frogs it is!”

       Mrs. Rain God listens patiently. She has heard his rants before, but never has he been so angry with Earthlings as now. So much cruelty, so much killing, so much lying. So little love.

       She chooses her words carefully. “It has been a long time since you sent frogs, dear. And I have another thought.”

       “Oh,” the Rain God raises his eyebrows. 

       “The evil is done by a small but bad lot with a lot of power – not by all humans. Many are doing good. Why one young troubadour sings to animals.” 

     “Harumph! He sings to his cat in the shower!” her husband snorts.

     She shakes her head. “He goes around the world singing to all kinds of animals –penguins and turtles,  lions and such. The animals listen. Really quite extraordinary to forge this new link between man and animals.”

     “Hmmm,” he mutters. “If not frogs, what?” he asks.

    “Snow,” she says.

       “Snow! Why snow?”

      “To remind them of the beauty that enfolds them on their beautiful planet. The lovely lacy snowflakes. The way snow cleanses the land, makes it new and pristine.”

     The God of Rain sniffs. He loves his wife and knows she is wise, but sometimes overly soft.

       “This seems overly soft for such grievous offenses humans are inflicting on each other and the land.” 

       She has anticipated this: “Let it snow and snow and snow, so that they know the power of it. The beauty and the danger of what may rain on them. The danger they inflict on a world that wants love and beauty!”

       The Rain God thinks a moment, smiles, then barks an answer. “I will send it everywhere, every day, every night –snow, snow, snow. Snow it isn’t just pretty; snow is mighty. And they ought to know that it could have been frogs!”

       And so it snowed all around the world for 40 days and 40 nights. It was beautiful, and fun, and dangerous. It united a fractured world for a sliver of time one winter as neighbors and strangers helped each other shovel out of snow drifts. Brought freezing strangers and animals inside. Went sledding on hillsides with their children and the children of complete strangers.