Snowy Day

It snowed all day yesterday and through the night, dropping a foot and a half of snow seemingly all at once after days of strangely balmy shirtsleeves weather.  This afternoon Annie still has a few icicles hanging from a knot of mane tied by the wind, even though her thick coat is dry now.   The hairs spraying out in a small star on her forehead remind me of a snowflake.  I watch from the overturned feed tub where I sit with my journal as she delicately picks strands of hay from the snow with her soft lips.  Birds make muffled piping noises in the smothered trees nearby.  The snow is like a blank, stark canvas on which Annie's dark coat sinks like a black hole in contrast.  I muse to myself as I watch the horses, content with their hay.  I feel my body settle and some blustery, busy place in my mind drops to a place of quietude.  Two ravens perched in a polished ,weathered dead tree chatter and click to each other.  They remind me of the way my mind chatters and fusses at times.  My mind questions the motivation of my connection with these equine companions. "Why don't you DO anything with them", it says from a place of sternness.  But as I allow myself to just be in the moment, watching the light change and Copper's burnished coat become rich and soft like a fawn's, my heart opens and knows beyond reason.