Details matter. As the winter season comes on, greens dissolve into brown, gray, shades of tan, ocher, you name it. Vibrant color fades so quickly. And we are left with brown forms, with gray skies, with icy rain.

Yet the intricacy of things continues: how the huge wild grape vines twist around the trees in our woods; how the red cedars keep their green on the back hill; how the beech trees are the last to lose their leaves, making a tapestry of sorts in the woods, a lasting beautiful show now; and how the forms of thistle-heads amaze me.

The complexity of life astonishes, if you are in the right frame of mind. I am not always in that frame of mind — who could be? —  but I try, and things gets easier with each passing year. The details are more beautiful, or revealing, and the winter is just the winter, with more subtle details.