Winter's Past

Author's Note - I wrote this night during a blizzard. I had walked outside and into the street, and then turned to look back at the house and saw my footprints in the snow. It was just a very magical moment that inspired me to write this piece.

For just this one moment
The whole world stands still
Me and the snow are the only things moving
I realize how beautiful the world is
When it is sleeping
And how wonderful it is
When the snow is cast for just one tiny second

Under a streetlamp
And how during that tiny second,
It turns gold

I notice

How even though the wind is blowing,
Sending whirlwinds of snow around me,
It never makes a sound
And how the snow is so clumsy in the air
Yet it never fails,
To land so gracefully
And to no avail,
Is quieter than the wind

My heart comprehends that,

With each step I take

Leaves another footprint

Behind me

An impression that seems so permanent

Yet, in the morning

This moment that seems so real to me,

Will be gone

Known to only me and the snow

When the people of this world wake up

The footprints long gone,

My past,

Lost in the snow's delicate beauty

And I will have left

Quieter, quieter
Than the wind and snow

The Duck Squirrel

One lovely day in the summer, Morgan Patterson and me were sitting in my front yard talking and enjoying the sun when we heard this really odd noise. We just ignored it at first, but then it got louder and we were like "Oh my god, what is that?" It was kind of like a mix between a duck and a noise a squirrel makes. It sounded like it was coming from my neighbors yard, so we decided to go see what it was. I took the sidewalk and walked around the outside of their yard, while Morgan went straight through it. Their yard isn't really that big, so it didn't take us very long to walk across it. We were standing there, listening for the noise when we heard it again and saw that it was coming from a squirrel perched high in a tree a few feet away. We were standing there laughing at the squirrel because it made such a weird noise when all of a sudden it saw us. Now, usually if a squirrel sees people it would run up the tree, but this one started to run down the tree AT us. So of course, being the girls we are, we screamed and started running. I ran out of the yard and down the street on the sidewalk. I reached my yard and turned just in time to see Morgan run smack into the other tree in my neighbors yard. Her shoulder hit it, and her whole body flipped and she landed on the ground. I started laughing so hard, and Morgan just kept lying there. As for the squirrel, we have never seen it, or heard it, again.