Be glad you’re in bed on the cold
clear nights when I show up.
I seek valleys and low-lying areas
first, but you’d never catch me.
I have no body so imagine
me as a humungous white
night-bird flying close to the ground.
My shadow silvers grass and bushes
and rocks. Kills gardens. Freezes
puddles. I’m snow’s forerunner.
What am I?
You watch me
but I’m bigger than TV.
You’ve seen me flat
as a pancake or lumpy
as cauliflower. I may
be thick or thin, white
as milk, or metal-grey.
Some days you walk
through my shadow;
sometimes you see
right through me.
I can even be hair
in a mare’s tail,
scales on a mackerel’s back.
What am I?
Squirrels stuff their cheeks with me.
Blue jays hide me, deer eat me too.
Like a leaf
I fall, but I’m never as quiet. Ten
of my friends could fit into
your pocket.
Something slow to grow, much
bigger than you, begins with me:
a nut in a cup.
What am I?