The autumn, the yellow squash lying in the garden, waiting their turn to be picked; the one maple tree, not on my land but near the crest of a hill on a neighbour’s farm, that turns such a radiant scarlet, the only one that is so dashing, so flagrant. On my trees the leaves change more softly, lighter oranges and yellows, until they fall and I gather them up, and although I know it is probably against some township bylaw I burn them, the ones I do not keep for rotting down for next year’s garden, and the scent of the burning is a perfect day. It is my last rite for the dying year.

And then the snows fall, easily at first, then sometimes with fury, but mostly with huge soft flakes that stay white on the ground and are almost always fat, because, I think, they don’t have to force their way through the black and the heat of the skies above cities; here, although I am truly not far from the city, less than two hundred miles, which is nothing really, it is clean.

The first time the snow comes, it is a surprise even to itself, it seems, tentative, not belonging, an advance guard set out to test the ground, which absorbs it immediately and leaves no trace. But then the snow falls harder, more determined, clinging to the earth, unwilling to be thrown off or pulled in, and winds come too so that it is not silent, not this time, not yet, and quite suddenly it seems the earth is white, green and brown one moment and then in an instant white, and soon after that the winds slow, the snow slips down more gently, knowing that it has won, it is its turn, and there is no more need to be ferocious. I watch that first snowfall late into the night, the lights turned off so that I can see better into the darkness outside, and although it marks a change, there is nothing unwelcoming in me.

I wake up in the mornings and look out at untracked snow. In the evenings I have my fireplace, my drawings, my self. Everything is very slow, very soft, and my thick quilts are like the snow, heavy and protecting. In the beginning it was a test, this hibernation of the winter, and I felt pale for a long time that first year, before my mind became as still as the whiteness outside.

One cannot regret the loss of a season. I do not feel sad because the snow melts and the time to leave my quilted womb has come, or because the last squash is picked, the last scarlet leaf gone, and it is time to retreat once more. Each time is right for its time, and it may be mildly astonishing to find that each season corresponds exactly with some rhythmic need of my own.