Snowdrop

In the morning, the girl realizes there were no stars. It's merely deep snow on her lawn. Snow that seems it may never melt. It gets deeper every day. She can't remember a winter when it snowed so much, the constant white covering. A friend asks her on the phone why she cries so much. Even with the question, tears prick her eyes. Snap out of it. Look around and see how lucky you are. She'd like to see the stars again, think the heavens have come to down her.

Now the snow is so deep and comes so often there is no path back, no trail of footprints (like the ones she deliberately tried to leave yesterday, in the driveway), no breadcrumbs. It's all snowed over. Maybe in spring, maybe in the summer, maybe if the sun shines, maybe she can find a way back. A small piece of green, a snowdrop, just a little white bud, pushing up. The bud open, but hung low. Still, that snowdrop pushed from beneath the cover, came up, even if the white leaves drop back to toward the frozen earth, it pushed once. It pushed through the deep deep stars.