Spring flowers
autumn moon
summer breezes
winter snow:

With mind uncluttered
·  this is  ·
the finest season!

-Wúmén Huìkāi

Proof of spring?

 

Gloomy Winter’s Now Awa’
soft the we
stlin breezes blaw
… and ilka thing is cheerie, O!

~ Robert Tannahill

 

Notwithstanding bud-shaking bluster and thermometric vagaries, evidence mounts to confirm that vigorous life returns to the shivering landscape.

Eat hearty, and may blues speedily dispel blaahs!

 

Unsure footing

Fresh snow is often an ideal medium on which diverse passages may be recorded and revealed, though their makers may remain mysterious unless actually witnessed. In this case, paw-prints are fairly distinct, but the rest? Sweeping tail, run-on landing, violent sneeze?

And more of same,

for a short span resolving into a reasonably coherent trail, possibly of a small fox, large raccoon or one of the few remaining feral cats.

While too blurred for a positive identification, toe marks at least indicate (unless the wily one had its shoes on backward) direction of motion. Back up-trail a few feet is the imprint of commotion: with only one set of prints exiting, reflecting either air-to-ground combat or a single-body collision of some kind.

Looking yet further back and up reveals the misadventure, if not identity, of the sojourner. An optimistic stroll from rough woods, hopping over a plow berm onto the apparently easier passage of a paved way, where fresh powder conceals slick ice:

Disorienting and embarrassing, perhaps, but apparently without serious consequences. We should all be so lucky—and perhaps, as relatively brittle organisms with further to fall, more cautious.