Shades of Gray

Everything is in shades of gray, browns and white. In the winter you can focus on objects, on shapes in a way you cannot do in other seasons. I am attracted by bark. The deep almost black of the trunk of cherry, the peeling underside of the skin of birch, the white spotted gray of ash.

Today – after snow shoeing up the hill through the soft inch of just fallen snow, I descended down into the wetlands…now nearly frozen over, except for the subterranean rush of running water. On one bush I found the hard red cases of what looked like cocoons. Maybe these will be caterpillars, then moths, come spring. Now that it’s the end of January, I am dreaming spring.