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A clean page
Tess opened her blue sketchbook to a clean page.
She had drawn the apple tree yesterday.
Today she would draw something smaller.
A snowflake landed on her mitten.
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Hold still
The snowflake was shaped like a tiny branching star.
'Hold still,' Tess whispered.
She found the sharp end of her pencil.
The flake had already changed.
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A very small puddle
She made one line. Then another.
When she looked back, the snowflake was a wet spot.
Tess frowned at her unfinished star.
It was a very short sitting.
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Another visitor
A second flake settled on the stone wall.
Tess hurried over.
This one was different.
She turned to a new page, but the wind turned two pages more.
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A useful stone
Papa brought a smooth stone for the corner of the book.
The pages stayed down.
The snowflakes did not.
'Perhaps they haven't time for portraits,' Tess said.
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What passed
She drew a short white-looking space between two dark lines.
That was where the flake had been.
Beside it she drew a crooked streak.
That was where it had gone.
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The tree shook
A sparrow shook the apple branch.
Snow dropped in a soft tumbling cloud.
Tess laughed and drew a great scribble.
It almost fell off the edge of the page.
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Tracks
Across the garden ran a line of little footprints.
The sparrow had walked there before it flew.
Tess drew the tracks.
She left a space where the flying began.
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The sound page
Papa brushed snow from the step.
Shuff. Shuff.
Tess made broad soft stripes.
'What's that?' he asked.
'Your broom, before it stops sounding like that.'
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Come inside
Her pencil grew slippery in her mitten.
Tess closed the book and went inside.
A wet mark darkened the cover.
She carried that in, too.
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The morning on the table
They spread the pages on the kitchen table.
There was a star without enough branches, a scribble, some tracks and the broom's soft shuffling.
Papa looked through them slowly.
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A place left open
Tess put the unfinished star beside the window.
Outside, snow fell past the glass.
She did not ask it to stop.
She left the next page open.
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