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.
snowflakes
January 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.
January 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.
January 13, 2024
After a night of snow and rain, trees rock and clatter under orange clouds. The roof drips. Scattered flakes swirl past.
January 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.
January 4, 2024
Snow flurries at sunrise. My canvas sleeves become collections of daggers and asterisks—a short-lived museum of the moment.
December 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.
December 6, 2023
Some breaks in the clouds around sunrise. The wail of a fire engine on the wind. Snowflakes drift down.
March 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.
March 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.
March 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.
February 18, 2023
Sun blazing through the trees illuminates lost snowflakes, miles from the nearest cloud. A chipmunk with hibernation insomnia races up the driveway.
February 3, 2023
-12C with a wind. Which one of those small pink clouds is responsible for these snowflakes? My oil furnace trembles under the house like a wounded animal.
February 1, 2023
I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to this: bitter cold with the ground mostly bare. Chickadees are having a fracas. Snow drifts down from a clearing sky.