Snow Storm

There’s a tipping point in each snow storm, a moment when the world goes from slick, dirty sidewalks and wet slush squelching down all thick and flabby, to something else. The snow begins to accumulate, first in furry patches on the streets and trees, then in large swaths that cover whole avenues in white silence. 

Then the light changes, and the air grows luminous from the reflected glow of all that blowing ice. It blooms from the ground up into the sky, the mirror of cloud above and icy expanse below magnifying one another, the street lamps, the Christmas lights, the warm glows of brownstone living rooms and apartment building security floodlights, traffic lights and drugstore signs, all reverberating and amplifying in the ever-expanding storm of crystals until the entire city is filled with unearthly, swirling light.