Whitney Ross-Barris

Lyrics

When in the depths
Of a dark grey Canadian winter
I throw back in my memory.

The sound of snowflakes
Falling on the snow bed around my ears,
In my hair,
And dissolving with a quiet bristle
On my cheeks.

Looking directly into the puff fluff
plummeting like warp speed stars
And the night sky,
Broad and navy velvet,
Personally unfurling
Like a movie, screening this quiet moment.

I could cry
To think of
How I could pause
And stay in a such a quiet moment,
Minute upon hour,
not considering what had been or what was to come.
Nothing but the pleasure
of that halted time.

Until the cold began to creep
Through the stuff of my pale pink snowsuit,
Chilling my bum, my toes and the back of my head.
And until the amber light from the living room window
And its moving shadows of readying dinner
Grew brighter than the snowlight
Bouncing off itself,
Until it was time to go in.

So, when the cold and confusion
Of a midwinter blue
Starts to weigh saltily
On my February heart,
It helps to remember
That somewhere on the overcrowded shelves
and in the junk drawers of my memory,
Lives that quiet delight
In being alone with the snowflakes
From a winter sky
that was there just for me.