On A Short Drive in Winter

A twenty minute drive on January 3, 2015. 

Cold, gray winter skies dreary winter skies, solemn winter skies. 

These far off hills, tree covered and misty. 

A lone crow perched atop a dead tree. Water from recent rains dripping in long icicles long rocky embankment where old shacks perch precariously along the ledge above them.  

A ruddy colored hawk wrestling with his dinner, a small rabbit,squirming in his sharp talons along the side of the road as I drive by.  

Once green cornfields, shorn to rubble, now are just part of the tans and browns and grays that comprise the winter when there's no snow on the ground,no sun in the sky, and all is overcast and muted.  Quiet, resting, rebuilding waiting for Spring.  

A great gray weathered barn sits alone in the field of muted greens and drab tans set against the backdrop of dark and silvery sycamore trees across the field along the tree line.  

Four-lane highways are like sinewy grey devils, more pleasant to go through quiet little towns, towns with weird and quirky names, like Avoca

and Oolitic,

little towns along rural highways with cops running radar.  Closed up stores and abandoned houses like blemishes on the quaintness of the town.  Gravel parking lots, tiny white churches and signs for deer processing, 2.3 miles down a side road.