On Sunday we watched actual snow flakes falling. This evening it just looks like it's snowing: a mass of white insects has hatched in the back yard. A swirling swarm of them fills the air space between the house and river. As the last rays of the sun send a column of light through the yard, illuminating the flies, the sheer magnitude of the hatch becomes visible. Shifting my focus, I realize the little gnats are also stuck all over my screen window. They're almost tiny enough--my husband estimates them to be about a #26 fly--to fit through the holes in the screen.

It's too chilly to be hanging out in the back yard anyway, so I can enjoy the sheer visual marvel of this insect flash mob, as well as appreciate the return of non-biting insects in numbers sufficient to feed returning songbirds and trout down in the river. The phoebe singing outside my office window this morning, for example, will be grateful for this flying feast.

Flies swirling like snow
after all snow has melted--
air's never empty.