Snow and Ash

It's a tradition of sorts when the moon is waning - at first light, I wrap up warmly, don my boots and go out to the garden to look up at the fragile scrap of radiance dancing overhead, sometimes clear and sometimes obscured by winter cloud.

This morning, there is cloud in abundance, and there is no moon to be seen, not even a single star winking overhead. Lady Moon will be new in a few days, and if she was visible this morning at all, it would be as a thin shining lunula shaped crescent in the southeast quadrant. No matter, for the moon and I are old friends, and I know what she looks like up there behind her veil of cloud.

This morning, it is just me and the old ash tree, her furrowed bodice and arching branches plumed with snow. Ash is a thicket all by herself.