The slowness of spring shadows

I have stopped by woods on a snowy evening.
It’s a sublime slanting sun, and,
camera in hand,
I come upon the hoped-for scene.

The reaching trees, silhouettes of bareness.
The furnace of the sun,
a smudge of burnt orange behind the ridge,
imparts a hue, a twilight blue
to the mile-long shadows in the powdery glitter.

I click and click with frantic abandon,
not wanting to lose this singular zenith of beauty.
How many shots? a hundred? a thousand?
I will take them home-
enhance them, adobe them, candy coat them
until they look, they look…
like those coffee table books that no one reads.

So,  I turn to go, my anticipation tempered now.
I look back once more, in regret.
The deep blue shadows slowly lengthen
as the sun pours dark red lava down the hillside.

I stop. Upon a stump I sit.
There is longevity here, a longevity of bliss.
And now I know why those beautiful heavy books
have sticky pages and dusty covers
pristine of fingerprints.