end of winter wind

end of winter wind

roars through the woods, blowing blanched

hazel leaves flat out

A light dusting of snow during the night vanishes when a March wind roars in. The cold gale roars through the trees in the woods, blowing the blanched leaves still clinging to hazel trees sideways.
          Pilgrim Creek, like a shiny silver snake that has just shed its winter skin of ice, slithers around its serpentine bed. Clay from the high bank leaks into the water, making orange tabby cat masks. 
          The erratic glacial boulder seems to be squeezing its eyes shut against the wind, or perhaps it's just smiling at the hubbub of hastiness whirling around it. 
          Something oddly rectangular on the bark of a buckeye tree stops me. It looks like a secret door. Perhaps this is entrance to the Land of the Little Ones, but the sun has already sunk behind the hill, taking its shining keys with it for another day.