Snow

As winter approaches, poets often like to take the time to reflect on the beauties and mysteries of the earth in winter as it sleeps beneath a blanket of snow. Not going into the lack of original thought that usually goes into such accolades, as a Virginian, I have a slightly different take on this lovely season.

Perhaps it was because I had actually taken the time to enjoy autum, unlike in previous years where I was either more concerned with work or with school (I still work, but I've recently learned to ignore that fact), but the bare trees took me by suprise. For all intents and purposes, it's winter.

By winter, I don't mean the winter that you see in movies like "Seven Brides for Seven Brothers," with lovely blankets of snow that keep us home and force us to notice it and enjoy it.

I'm talking about a Virginian winter. Sometimes cold, sometimes hot, so no matter how well you plan you will inevitably find yourself dismantling or adding to your outfit throughout the day. And the trees! A nudist colony is an ugly sight in the human world, and it's an ugly sight in the natural world too. In our post-fallen state, all of the created world, not just man, should simply not be left naked. Animals have fur for a reason. People wear clothes. That is because nakedness is such mass quantities will always be unappealing, and that's all there is to it.

Snow is there to cover what cannot cover itself. Modesty makes beautiful what is ugly. And then it should melt just as the leaves come out, so we never have to be left with the ugly naked trees. Of course, that's when Virginia decides that it's a good time to dump a blizzard on us. Right when we're tired of the cold, i.e. in March when it's supposed to be getting warm, it snows. Pretty, right? But then it melts just enough; what doesn't melt looks dirty, and what does melt freezes, making driving something that only daredevils should do.

It's a good thing that Virginian winters have Christmas is all I've got to say. And the ACLU wants to take that away from us too. They should live in Virginia for a winter before saying whether or not we should be allowed to have something to look forward to in this dreary season.

I love Virginia. It's just that 24 winters in a row have taken their toll, and the time had come to vent.