An Appropriate Snow (SWF)

Snow on Queen Anne's Lace

Snow on Field

Sometimes snow just feels right.

In the same way that a thunderstorm
clears the heaviness from a summer day, only colder,

or the spot beneath your pillow
cools your cheek on a still, breezeless night, only fluffier,

or a bright new carpet without a step upon it
lights up the room you’ve looked at for years, only larger.

A man takes an oath for change
before a million sparkling faces standing as one.
And it feels like snow.

Snow

See more Skywatch here.

All Alone

Empty Trails
Cincinnati Nature Center

The Frozen Falls on Avey's Run

It accentuates the absence of all else—the sound of a drip into water, round and clean, against the backdrop of stillness. While, throughout the darkened house, all other activities pause.
The silence then, so great, that it becomes, instead of absence, its own presence—a tangible thing.
Rarely unspoiled.

I ventured out into Friday’s frigid air and roamed the trails, alone. For these woods, so loved by so many on any other day, today, were barren.
And, beneath hat and hood, the stillness, very strange.

Several times I stopped and stood, puffing warm air into cupped hands and letting it rise to wash my face in steamy clouds. And found myself dressed in frosty lashes, squinting against the brightness of a cloudless January sky.

Watching Deer

In the distance, the call of a Barred Owl, this wintry day, his. And I imagined him fluffed against the cold somewhere, hidden against the brown and white of densely crossed winter branches, still.
While deer, frozen forms on a sheltered hillside, watched me pass.

Winter Light on Avey's Run

I hopped across the crossing stones frozen in the thick white stillness of the creek bed of Avey’s Run, the low light casting long shadows onto the steep hillsides on either side. All alone in the depths of these woods, I knelt in the middle on the cold and slippery surface. The waters that roar here each spring, now still.
To listen to the silence of the winter woods.
Drip, drip, dripping beneath me.

Ice

Can you imagine?

Pileated Woodpecker, Dryocopus pileatus

I see her visit often.
Yet, each time, my eyes follow.
As the broad black and white wings flash,
and fold neatly aside a tall tree.

And, I wonder, as I stop and stare,
years ago, what it must have been like.
To watch them without wonder,
knowing there would always be
ivory bills on broad flashing wings.

Can you imagine?


.

How low can you go?

January 16, 2009
Butlerville, Ohio

Please add your lows for today in the comments!

From my Window, White (SWF)

The Woods Beyond my Window

From my window, I look out over the yard, through the Hawthorn just feet beyond the house, and into the woods sloping gently down to a small creek. Watching, from over the screen of my laptop, and behind glass, the lives drawn to this edge each morning.

Often, they flow past unnoticed.
Into the rusty browns of the fallen oak hickory woods and slender gray stems of the graceful young trees filling the understory, they step into invisibility. Without movement, added to this tapestry—
in the softened tones and textures of a woven winter wood.





Until I wake on a snowy morning like this,
and find the darkness brighter.
The Hawthorn filled with forms,
plumped and fluffed against a white cold.

American Golfinch, Carduelis tristis

See more Skywatch here.

Participating in Camera Critters here!

R.S.V.P.

Winter Pond

The invitation arrives every day--

in the bright spot of sunlight on an otherwise darkened forest floor that perfectly illuminates the first wildflower of spring,

or the freshly laid footprints left in a dusting of snow that lead from a clearing,
and step within,
beyond,

or a fine feather found resting, undisturbed,
beneath the tree you walked past yesterday, without it.



Those moments when, as if accepting an outstretched hand,
we are drawn in--
to see.

please click to enlarge
(tiny hidden detail)

And are held there,
watching.



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Visiting

Zig-zag Ice on Caesar Creek Lake

To see you now,
in wrinkles,
and gray, turned white around the edges,
resting here, alone,





while all have gone,
taking their smiles and laughter, home--




It is like looking upon the face of an old friend.

Summer Water from canoe
2008

Caesar Creek Lake is a flood control and recreation reservoir created by the Army Corps of Engineers in the 1970s. In the warmer months, the water level is high enough to make the lake a popular destination for fishermen and water enthusiasts. We canoe here often.

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