Barn in Fall Snow

It wasn’t a blanket of snow, like in winter.

Fall snow doesn’t fall; it settles on the ground between the mud and the dying brush—snow for when there are no birds left in the branches.

Twigs and leaves wait in the patches of snow as if a child forgot them in the yard.

It wasn’t a turning snow, mixed with mud and slush, like in spring.

Fall snow sits on the peaks of mud, as if the earth had left the rocks, the grass, the dirt, the sagebrush, and the branches in a single breath. As if last night were the last night the earth breathed into the soil until spring.