A half-hour before dawn, the stars begin to lose their luster—always a more melancholy thing than a sunset to me. The wind picks up.

A slate-gray sky. From the birdfeeder up at my parents’ house, the sound of squabbling crowds, pushy as bargain shoppers ahead of the sleet.

Enough snow now to make the ground a blank page for the calligraphy of weeds and the meandering tracks of birds, the prints of their wings.

Two inches of fresh snow, and already the black cat is taking a shit in the middle of the driveway. Small pink clouds clutter up the sky.

Mid-morning, and many of the feeder birds are sitting quietly in the treetops, silhouetted against the whitening sky. Bright smudge of sun.

Snowflakes in the air: the small, light variety that fall at ten degrees below freezing. They drift sideways, glistening in the sun.

Another half-inch of snow on the ground, on the porch, on the horizontal limbs at the forest edge: pale arms outstreched in the darkness.

Cold, gray, and windy, with a new half-inch of snow. The only flicker of warmth is a chickadee’s call—the pilot light in a stone-cold oven.

Clear sky, and the meadow white with frost: an almost-winter morning. Juncos forage at the edge of the woods, wings flashing in the sun.