What if snow were purple or pink
          or robin’s egg blue
painting every spruce and fir with a pastel palette
          pleasing perhaps but pert too pert?

Or what if snow were burnt umber or raw sienna
          or van dyke brown
a seamless segue from November’s leaf-strewn landscape
          to the sucking sepia sloughs of March?

But snow is white wondrously winsomely white
          winter dressed like a bride
earth adorned in beauty and light
          a promise made and kept.