SNOW DEVILS

Out this morning in yesterday's snow, walking cross-mountain at the edge of the new blizzard moving in from the northwest, we saw the snow devils come whirling down the slopes, leading the front that approached like a high gray wall in the sky, the mountains quickly disappearing behind higher mountains of snow roiling down ragged and dark with snowflakes, dropping their delicate steams, the sun a weak silver disk - like a light behind thick gray silk - then it too was gone and all was swirls of snow into which footprints disappeared ahead and behind--

On the fading lake the distant whitening islands disappeared first, then the dark water, as the falling snow hid all; up here the air was now still and close, the earth rising slowly into the calm and steady whiteness of the full snowfall.

In all that whispering action the loudest sound was our footsteps...