Just a moment in time

Ah, the lovely sparkly snow of just yesterday is gone, replaced with a few dull, white patches made occasionally treacherous by puddles and ice. For a few hours, the snow sparkled and twinkled like glitter, like diamonds, like stars on a clear night. It took my breath away. I watched the blanket of snow sparkle in the sun and just stood there, entranced with its loveliness.

But now, it's nearly gone already. That seems to be the way of snow in this new climate. It’s gone before you blink, leaving only a memory or an image in a camera.

Even though a photograph has always been but a moment in time, not all the captured moments disappear quite so quickly as this snow did. Mountains remain, lakes remain; to short-lived humas only the lighting changes.  Sunrises disappear, sunsets disappear but return the next day, different but always there. Snow? I expect that to last for a while, to disappear slowly, a bit at a time, perhaps turning a trifle gray in its last days. Usually patches of bare earth appear and expand over several days before the snow is overwhelmed by melting. Sometimes snow lasts for weeks, even months.  I get used to it, surprised in the spring when a pretty bump turns out to be something I should have thrown away in November.

But not this time. the snow is gone, nearly as quickly as a sunrise.