I think it’s partly because the hillside is covered with evergreen laurel that this phenomenon of a white ground still seems so surreal.
snow
Fresh, deep snow on all the outstretched branches at the woods’ edge—those trees that have always hungered for an extra helping of light.
Cold—the porch floorboards pop under my feet. Real snow at last! The rising sun stretches two faint fingers across the driveway.
Each blanketing of snow so far this winter has happened while we slept. How superstitious to insist that it all must’ve fallen from the sky!
Trees rock and sway, infiltrated by snowflakes flying this way and that. From deep in the lilac, the wandering warble of a tree sparrow.
Wind-driven snow; I draw my hood tight. On the wall behind me, the thermometer’s big red arrow inches left like a clock running backward.
Clear sky, bright sun, and the temperature well above freezing. A crow’s shadow scuds over what’s left of the snow like a dark promise.
A steady hum of traffic from over the ridge spoils the pre-dawn quiet, just as the snow on the ground sullies the darkness.
Finally, a good facsimile of a winter morning: enough snow to cover the grass, and on the window a tangle of stitches etched in frost.
First snow of the new year: thin as the flaking whitewash on the old springhouse. Two hikers and a dog each wear vests of safety orange.
A dusting of snow on every branch and twig. In the half-dark, kinglets bob in the top of a black birch—their high, thin calls.
Snow blowing sideways. As the wind changes direction, two dead trees fallen onto the living take turns complaining: first eeee, then ahhh.
Snow like a coating of mildew on fallen leaves. Sunrise turns the western ridge blood-red, punctuated by the yellow ribs of dead trees.
A pair of Carolina wrens—one in the lilac, the other in the dead cherry—flit from branch to branch, tasting the new-fallen snow.