on the white palette

on the white palette

of fresh snow, impressions of tracks,

a charcoal stick

Late February snowstorm, just enough to color the ground white. On the smooth palette left by the Volvo on the gravel driveway, small animal tracks are scattered like an Impressionist painting, blue on blue. One black twig, partially buried, as if the artist dropped the charcoal stick used to incise the pattern.

The impressions are a melange of bird and rabbit tracks.

The rabbit tracks look like a pair of ovals followed by a butterfly print. Next to the rabbit tracks, a bird has landed, its feet making a pair of exclamation marks and its wing leaving brush marks on the snow.

A bird hopping one way, a rabbit crossing its path the other direction.

A pair of bird wings look like two fans.

Here a bird brushed just one wing in between hops.

Where the snow has been churned up, birds have been scratching for grit, necessary for digestion for birds that eat their seeds whole. Tough tummies!