The flakes of soft, beautiful cold
Embrace the earth
Unbidden drops caress each hand
Opened by God’s gentle touch

This unwanted, consuming pureness,
Is not what we want to welcome
We never did want its innocence
It reveals too much

The deceit, the mistakes that are hidden
Beneath the leaves that have shriveled and died
Are somehow discovered in their shallow hiding places
No … snow is not wanted here.

While each frozen, contained droplet
Lingers on each doorknob, each branch
Some small sin is discovered
Whether or not it wants to be

A child, too, was sent in snow
Pure, soft, beautiful, innocent
He revealed what the world didn’t want to see
Their sins didn’t want to be discovered

The sins that controlled their being
Stains that would forever remain
They refused to budge from their lurking
Hidden from what could save them

Somehow snow fell one day
But through it blackness drank
To wash to world it had to be found
I had to be shown at its most hallowing depth

If only the world would love the snow
This white blanket of protection
But what is pure is what can hurt
All that needs to stay the same

With innocence that makes us love it
In some way, the warmth of snow finds its place
Just like God found some of us
When we were in the dark.