IN THE WOODS - I have often thought of how hard it is to describe in words the silence of a snowy woods.

Impossible perhaps, and one day I will be immersed in that quiescence more intimately, wondering…what has happened here?

We can’t know, I have been told, but something has internally called me to search anyway so I wander into the trees in the snow.

Imagine my surprise when, on a recent soft-stepped sojourn, I stumbled upon a Snow Ghost taking shape from within the white cold.

It seemed confused at first, familiarizing itself with its sudden form, maybe the same as I will when oppositely changed into the hush.

Something is telling me we are always in that noiseless place even when thrashing about in these elegant impermanent encumbrances.

I guess the Snow Ghost heard me pointing my camera toward it or noticed the steam rising from my breathing because it turned away.

Slower than a sleeping sloth, the creature slogged up a steep hill, disappearing into the safer depths.