A few flakes come swirling out of the woods. A dried oak leaf lies on the porch floor like a sad umbrella or a mouse with too many legs.
snowflakes
At first the snow falls straight and serious. But as it thins, they seem to lose their direction and wander back and forth, these flakes.
A few degrees above freezing. The sun’s still shining when the snow begins to fall, small flakes sifting down through the flowering trees.
Snowflakes swirl clockwise around the yard. A red-tailed hawk flies over, flapping hard, pale feathers almost invisible in the falling snow.
A slow snow. I love that brief period before the walk is completely buried: the random mottling, the impression of a great, anonymous crowd.
Snowflakes wander to and fro like alien spacecraft on reconnaissance missions: “All strangely quiet. Dominant species an arboreal rodent.”
Flakes in the wind—not from the clouds, but the ground. A large, dried oak leaf curled like a boat floats down and lands on the snow.
Yesterday’s insects have been replaced again by wandering snowflakes. A vulture flaps to gain altitude, its head red and garish as a wound.
Snow in progress: curtains that fall and fall until they become the show itself. A nuthatch like a prompter—its anxious calls.
Flat white sky and a long, low rip of sound: some military jet. The first flakes drift back and forth, as if unsure of their destination.
Cold and gray—November weather at last. Oak leaves twirl and somersault past the porch, accompanied by a few motes of snow.
Heavy frost, and the bare dirt in the garden has crystallized into icy turrets. Motes of snow float past, backlit by the sun. Robin song.
Just audible over the wind: a junco’s chitter. Leaves lift off from the newly melted forest floor and join a harried flock of snowflakes.
Flakes in the air and the barest fur on the ground, like a leaf’s glaucous bloom. A low-key chattering match of nuthatches 100 yards apart.