Winter Curtain Call

Yesterday winter gave the perfect curtain call, bowing gracefully, graciously. There was nothing overly showy to suggest that it was the final performance, but the program notes for this season suggest that it was.

Just enough snow touched up fields and woods to heighten their beauty. Holly miraculously displayed white blossoms. The dry lavender hydrangeas of the summer past became fresh white hydrangeas for a few hours. Like the holly, conifers, briefly, were brightened with white. But there was nothing heavy-handed about this bowing out. Winter seemed, somehow, to understand that its chilling, arresting performance of 2010-2011 had received all the applause it was going to get, even from those in its audience who devotedly applaud all of its acts. It seemed to understand that — barring an unlikely standing ovation — it had come time to let spring take center stage.