I gaze outside my window at the bleak landscape of the early winter. At the dim yellow grass, the pale green shrubs, at the dry brown leaves that coat parts of the ground. I see an occasional flower, its vibrant color dulled by the cold. Then there are the trees, the countless trees that line the side of the road, trees once covered by millions of radiant leaves that have long since disappeared. The treetops are thousands of thin, gray lines against a pale, blue-gray sky. As I watch, countless gray stalks and even more gray branches enter and leave my view, the closer ones quicker, the farther ones slower. And as these branches, these little gray lines so clear against the darkening sky, fly past each other, they cut up the sky into millions of little pieces, pieces that shift and change so quickly, and if I look hard enough, I can see the pieces flash and twinkle, almost as if in these branches, where there once were so many bright leaves, there were now the tiniest little stars.