Early this blue-black morning, before the plows, before the crows, before the road salt was thrown, I watched from my window the winter’s soft, cold cotton falling beneath a streetlamp.  A blanket of snow was quilted over Lowell and like a child getting tucked in for the night, I felt this year was put sweetly to bed and blown a kiss goodnight.  Tomorrow morning, when I wake from the grog of last year, when I wake from the dreams that linger and lurk early into the new one, I’ll peer outside to the white scene and see a canvas blank and waiting.  I’ll wish for the world paint the color of a good vision, as many brushes as there are good people, and the deftness of those who will use them.  I’ll hope that when 2008 dries we find it worthy of display for decades and generations to come, that the years will look kindly on this next one, that it inspires the beginning of our greatest era.