Hoarfrost on the stovepipe is a white fur that was not there at supper.

Wind finds the mouth. The vowel appears. A boom answers from the hill, late, not in time, a different instrument. You do not stack them unless you are writing a legend. You are writing a log.

The metal of the pipe is not glowing with spirit-fire. It is cold enough to grow feathers. Your breath makes a tiny cloud that hangs, then dies. In still cold, fog can pool in the notch without being a soul. The real danger is getting wet and staying out: stay dry, stay fed, stay found.

A four-legged shape at the tarn may still want a name. The thermometer at the grate may still want a date.

You keep a glove on the pipe only a second; cold metal steals heat for a living. Hoarfrost is not ghost-fur. It is ice crystals grown from vapor, a slow frost-garden. Your breath-garden dies faster. Both are water doing costumes.