We walked far enough that the only footprints in the day-old snow were pawprints. Eventually even they disappeared.
The trunks of trees and the branches of thorn bushes threw grey-blue shadows, the austere color of a gun that has never been fired. The morning sun, still tethered low to the horizon, turned stalwart blades of grass into a thousand little sundials, faithfully witnessing the passing of another day on Earth. 
For anyone who took the time to look, the snow could be a field of stars, or diamonds, or the sequined train of the Ice Queen's gown.
The kind of beauty, I thought, that can never be touched