out my window - day 15

Twenty-four hours later the only evidence of a freak snow storm was in the ditches. The wind, however, had not subsided. It picked shingles off rooves and plastic bags off the ground and deposited the bags on branches so that it looked like people were growing plastic flowers that flapped in the wind. The pictures would have made an environmentalist happy, as a warning, not to frame.

A hawk, its broad wingspan casting a shadow on the ground, circled once, twice, and dove, carrying away a tiny gopher. One down, 999 to go.