Wild things have such a special beauty, and I find myself musing about what it must have been like in times when there were many more animals on earth than human beings. The air is damp and as evening approaches the snow begins to fall. Deer look out with their soft, dark eyes, gravely assessing the deepening snow, aware that slender legs and delicate hooves must find a foothold. In the pond nearby a beaver works against falling flakes and darkness, mending his house for the storm he knows is coming. As he moves, light ripples spread outward in water quickly growing slushy from the thickening snow.
Puffy chickadees sit upon the sheltered branches of a fir, dozing with heads tucked under wings.
As night descends the creatures of the day seek refuge from the cold, burrowing into their warm beds. There is no light of man's cabin, no print of intruding human - only animal tracks and wind blustering in the trees whose branches bend now beneath the weight of the steadily falling snow. Down the sky rush the winds, cold, wild and free, death and darkness ever near. The image is complete. My cat lies curled on his cushion near the fire on this winter evening, twitching occasionally as he dreams of the hunt, and I have almost dropped off myself.