Too dark yet to tell if the sky is overcast or clear. Wind soughing in the pines. The rapid footsteps of a leaf skittering up the driveway.

A fresh half-inch of snow is enough to give shape to banshees towering into the treetops, which whip back and forth, shedding dead limbs.

I love winter. I can rise late and it still feels early: clear sky, sun through the trees, the hollow rattle of a crow too angry to caw.

The trees rock quietly in the dawn wind, ringed by shards of yesterday’s armor. Reflections of golden clouds glide across the icy driveway.