We had our first snow the day before yesterday—a sticky-heavy whiteness you could tamp into stable shapes—then a smattering more yesterday, and this morning I am witness to wonders I realize only now have been in the making for days.  The third act is the revelation.  Soft golden light pours sideways across the sky from a low-lying sun, and the second ridge is garnished with fog.  The air and the land are rising together, drawing thin.  Closer by, bare trees in the yard are tipped with orbs of flickering color—beads of blue, red and green that twinkle and dance, then fall to the ground in lengthening streaks of glowing yellow.  Beneath the trees, it is raining.

But only there.

There’s a meaning in the scene that fills me.  I know what is on display, but its history eludes me.  The raining tree is a dictionary of potentials.  I realize each instance…