The Early Season

 

 

The sky a brooding bowl of
whipped cream slopping frostily
over the landscape newly
preparing itself for the season.

Limning shrubs, tree branches
with an exquisitely delicate
etching of snow blooming
in the gloom of another
onset of urgent winter.

A lacy tapestry of puffed fluff
weighting branches, laid over
trails, muting sound though
there are no birds anywhere.

They are suddenly absent,
the forest a hushed
huddling of small, furred creatures
seeking winter refuge.