But for the owl’s persistent question, issuing now and then from a nearby spruce in the darkness and falling snow, I would think that
A brutal misshapen cold, and us unready. Whicker. Vessel-proof, failing. Dwarfed by things already shrunken. Wind making noise as it passes through our age,
The road’s rising pulled our car forward, like a throat drawing in a flake of coal with the clear mountain air. Everything was contrast: