Winter Aspen

First off, I want to thank all of my wonderful friends for their comments and sympathy on my last post. You guys are amazing. But anyway, now I'm back to my usual, literary self. (I was never that far gone, to be honest. You may have noticed that even in the depths of despair I managed to sneak in a quote from A Knight's Tale  and one from Anne of Avonlea.) And so, I wrote my naturalist essay for English. And I really liked it, so I'm putting a bit of it up here. I don't want you to drown in the whole thing, but if you want the rest I'll add it later.

People say that winter is nothing but cold--cold and gray and dreary. It is cold. The rest is the sad mistake of those who can't see past what is right in front of their noses. Winter is magic. Winter is ice, snow, white, silver, sparkle, glide, black on white, the stark beauty of ink on paper. When you begin to see beauty in Winter, you see the very core of your surroundings. Without the shrouding bushes, mountains become monuments of stone, impenetrable as any medieval fortress, scraping the bases of the clouds. Without the enveloping greens of trees and grass, the bright red breast of a Robin flashes past in a blaze, striking in its confidence. Without the shivering leaves, the aspen tree seems an ancient goddess, every line a masterstroke of some forgotten quill. . .

Hope you like it. Happy winter!