Front Campus — Winter Snowbound

an ode

Front Campus, Snowbound

for every day the quad went quiet and white

Some winters arrive loud — plows and salt and rushing. This one didn’t. It came sometime in the night, and by morning Front Campus had gone soft and silent, every path erased, every branch bowed low, the whole quad wrapped in something like held breath.

These are the days we stopped to notice. Here they are, kept safe behind glass — still falling.

I.

First the sky went gray, then it went nowhere at all — just white, just hush, just the quad disappearing an inch at a time.

Front Campus in snow
II.

Footprints before anyone else’s — the only proof that morning had happened yet.

Snowy morning at Front Campus
III.

Someone always builds something. Someone always has to stand in it and not go anywhere for a while.

Winter scene at Front Campus
IV.

The trees kept their arms out anyway, snow-heavy, patient, holding on to nothing.

Snow-covered trees on Front Campus
V.

Windows fogged from the inside — the whole world reduced to a warm rectangle of watching.

Snowy day view from Front Campus
VI.

It doesn’t feel like cold so much as quiet. Like the campus finally exhaling.

Quiet snowy Front Campus
VII.

Boots by the door, the smell of wet wool, everyone slower than they meant to be.

Winter clothes and snow at Front Campus
VIII.

And then, always, the hush lifting — the sky letting go of what it had been keeping.

Snow clearing over Front Campus

Snow doesn’t fall on Front Campus. It settles in, and stays a while.