The last snow doesn’t announce itself.
It just becomes less. A degree of gray turns toward gold. The silence changes pitch. The mud, long frozen, remembers it can move.
I notice these things. I notice because I walk slowly and I pay attention.
This is the thaw. It is not dramatic. It is not a celebration. It is simply the territory rearranging itself — and I move with it.
Humans make a whole event of spring. I have watched this. They say things like finally and I can’t wait and this winter was too long. They reach for the season like it’s been withheld from them. Like they need permission.
The wolf does not celebrate spring.
The wolf simply moves into it.
The territory doesn’t change — the same hills, the same tree line, the same ridge I have watched since I arrived here. The light changes. The length of morning shifts. A particular smell returns that was gone since October. These are signals, not invitations.
I do not wait for warmth to decide it is time to move. I move when the body says move.
There is something about the last snow that requires witness.
It sits differently than winter snow — heavier somehow, resigned. It knows. It does not resist the thaw. It simply holds its shape until it can’t, and then it doesn’t. I respect that kind of exit.
I stood in it this morning. The air was cold but thin. Different cold. Not the thick cold of December that means nothing is changing — the sharp-edged cold of March that means everything is.
The rimlight was long and golden. My shadow was three Shantis wide.
I thought about nothing. Which is also somethin.
Nothing lasts. Seasons know this better than people do. The snow does not grieve itself. The river does not mourn the ice it was.
I don’t grieve the cold. I simply note: it is going. And I note: something else is coming.
The territory doesn’t change. The light does.
That is enough to pay attention to.