In the last hour of night, layers of dark and light play across the sky. Honey locust branches splay black against pale clouds smudged across the darkness.

Horton Park

Wind curling around the corner of the hi-rise creates a phantom waterfall as it rushes through a stand of firs. A crashing roar flows through the branches, and foamy mist swirls across the ground.

Hamline Hi-Rise

Melting snow rises from the ground to befuddle treetops, rubbing twigs into obscurity in a soft gray sky.

Horton Park

Sidewalks brushed with crystalline fog dazzle in half-moon light.

Hamline Ave.

The full moon dissolves into the blue morning sky, like a pat of butter onto a warm piece of toast.

University Ave.

Like an old-fashioned shaving brush prepared for a truly monumental giant, a perfectly rounded red pine specimen is topped with cold snowy foam.

Horton Park

Overnight snow lies eggshell-smooth across the ground, rounding off the neighborhood's rough edges.

Seminary Ave. & Hamline Ave.

Looking up as large, damp snowflakes fall, I have the thrilling sensation of zooming at warp speed through the core of a galaxy. Looking down, flakes disappear before hitting the white ground, journeys' ends traced by accelerating shadows, and stops marked by the shallowest of dents where they land on the earlier arrivals.

Fairview Ave. Station, Green Line

On a morning too cold for clouds, mazy twigs stand out dark against a pastel sky of clear periwinkle blue, brushed with a delicate veil of rose. Climbing into the car is like stepping into a snowflake, with lacy ice crystals flowing across the windows in sparkling fields of asters.

Seminary Ave.