You cannot hear snow falling. You simply wake up in the morning and it is there, a bright cover reflecting the sky, a silent miracle touching every surface of your world.

Even in the harshest storm, as you stumble blinded towards shelter, it is not the snow you hear, although whiteness surrounds you.

His love is like the snow. I opened my eyes one day and there it was, enveloping me. The flat was transformed into layers of memory - him sitting, standing, placing a cup of coffee on the floor beside the sofa where I could reach it.

I went to the window and saw the world in sharp focus, all motion, all energy intensified by the knowledge that he saw it too.

I wanted to cry out, to call him to me so that we could exclaim together over it.

But the snow does not know it is snow. It falls. It is, and then it is gone. My footprints are only faint.

I let it be. But in winter, when the ice creeps and blossoms across these old windows, I like to sit quiet and still beside him, trying to hear the snow falling.