Four hours before the equinox, the ground is white, with more snow swirling down. The miniature daffodils dangle from their stalks like deflated balloons.
snowflakes
3/10/2024
Time Change Day! I for one welcome our chronological overlords, and I’m out at the new 6:30 just as the weather, too, is making a change, the creek roaring, snowflakes drifting down.
1/21/2024
I’m grateful to the snowflakes for mostly not landing on the pages of my book and sailing on by. Am I fully acclimated to the winter now? It’s disconcerting how much the darkness has receded, only a month past the solstice.
1/19/2024
First light. White lines crisscross the dark edge of the woods: snow on trees. I stick my hand out to feel it falling, flakes as fine as dust melting into my palm.
1/16/2024
Snow falling at dawn—fine flakes at first, then larger and faster as the darkness subsides, as if they’re emissaries for the day. A chickadee sings his wistful, two-note song.
1/14/2024
Snow at first light—a silent mob of moving shadows, pecks on my cheek—then as dawn approaches, the slow differentiation of black and swirling white.
1/13/2024
After a night of snow and rain, trees rock and clatter under orange clouds. The roof drips. Scattered flakes swirl past.
1/9/2024
Snow falling so fast at sunrise you can hear it: a sort of high soughing as millions of special snowflakes hurtle into the oblivion of each other.
1/4/2024
Snow flurries at sunrise. My canvas sleeves become collections of daggers and asterisks—a short-lived museum of the moment.
12/30/2023
Overcast at dawn. A cold kiss—snowflakes in the air. When the sunrise comes, it’s only evident in the caws of crows.
12/6/2023
Some breaks in the clouds around sunrise. The wail of a fire engine on the wind. Snowflakes drift down.
3/18/2023
The sun guttering below a lid of utility-gray cloud illuminates a small flotilla of snowflakes. It’s quiet apart from one, highly excited wren.
3/14/2023
The porch is plastered with fresh snow; more flakes fly past without stopping. A Carolina wren holds forth from the heart of a barberry.
3/7/2023
It’s snowing, fine flakes turning fat and slow—but so many of them, it’s mesmerizing to watch. After a while I look down: I too have been buried.