Clear and cold at dawn, with a crescent moon tangled in the treetops. A tiny white prayer flag flutters from a branch: some vacant cocoon.

With each new snowfall the ground grows more uniform, our footprints grow harder to read, and cries die quickly, as in a soundproofed room.

Sparrow tracks in the thin snow under my chair: I see dandelion seeds on the wind. The house shivers all over when the furnace kicks on.

Leaf-sized shards of snow sail out of the woods. The black cat wallows up to her chest, pausing every few steps to shake one of her legs.

Bright moonlight, bitter cold. The wind has erased all footprints, and the creaking tree has changed its tune to a dry ah… ah… ah…

Come crow and save us from a world without shadows, white as a motel towel, a rented room, the coats of orderlies in a home for the insane.

Falling snow so fine it lends little more than a shimmer to the air, like heat waves above a summer street except for the downward drift.