White and Gold

The snow continued into the following week, but was not as severe. Again they spent time in the silver birch wood, all white and gold in the late afternoon as the winter sun gilded white branches and high drifts and burnished the icy white river banks. Walking and talking along the woodland road, sharing long silences, folding the memory with such tender care into the deepest reaches of their minds and hearts. Each knowing the joy of being together may be as the fall of snow that lay about them. Thick, soft, enchantment wherever they looked, transforming the ordinary, lighting up the dark. The whole world wrapped in white, cloaked so completely as if the old world really was lost forever. All we can do is immerse ourselves in wonder at the magic we know will be short-lived. Waking one morning all the snow will be gone. One day everywhere - one day nowhere. Coppelia told him how his white hair was like the snow.