Dream Horses

For man, as for flower and beast and bird,
the supreme triumph is to be most vividly, most perfectly alive.

-- D. H. Lawrence, Apocalypse

The photo was taken late this afternoon, on my way back from upstate NY. The horses caught my eye as I drove past; I immediately had to find a place to turn around so I could come back, tiptoe through a snowbank, and simply watch them. They were so beautifully still, so dreamlike, so part of the wintry world.

Almost Winter

Now winter nights enlarge
This number of their hours ...

-- Thomas Campion

The photo was taken this evening in Rhinebeck, New York. Click on image to enlarge.

Never-ending Snow

My yard. Today. The snow just keeps coming, transforming the trees into something magical, dreamlike. The sleepyhead pines and cedars bow their heavy heads. Like a visitation, a hawk swoops overhead to land in a nearby tree, shaking down clots of snow. Then perfectly still, he/she watches me back.

From "Silent Snow, Secret Snow," a short story by Conrad Aiken:

The hiss was now becoming a roar -- the whole world was a vast moving screen of snow -- but even now it said peace, it said remoteness, it said cold, it said sleep.

Conrad Aiken (1889-1973)

Click on image to enlarge.

Windshield Feathers

This so-called "arctic blast" has us hibernating. On soul-chilling Saturdays like this, I welcome the morning mug of coffee with both hands. This has been another season of spectacular ice formations -- fantastic, fleeting patterns only the camera can hold on to. These swirling ice-plumes surprised me on December 14th, as I hurried to my car on the way to work. I had never seen such an intricate windshield bas relief. I found my camera and took this photo from the driver's seat. I love the way the bare black trees loom like giants beyond the glass. Hard to stop looking; harder yet to scrape away the art and head toward my other reality.

To enlarge the photo, click on the image.

Ice Lace

The melting ice reshapes itself into lacy galaxies, volcanic peninsulas, and bubbled glass swirls.

The ice was found on the road at the top of my hill. Click on image to enlarge.

Thaw

So much glittering ice this winter. The stairs, the brick walk, and the steep driveway are all treacherous runways leading to slapstick crash landings. Especially in the dark. Today: thaw at last. Just saying February sounds warmer. (Parallel mood thaw?)

Here are several selected lines plucked (not in order, sorry -- just wanted that first one first) from Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska's poem "Under a Certain Little Star," translated by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire:

Pardon me, hounded hope, for laughing now and again.

Let happiness be not angry that I take it as my own.

I apologize to time for the muchness of the world / overlooked per second.

I apologize to the cut-down trees for the table's four legs.

I apologize to the big questions for small answers.

This piece appeared in The Poetry of Our World: An International Anthology of Contemporary Poetry, edited by Jeffery Paine with Kwame Anthony Appiah, Sven Birkerts, Joseph Brodsky, Carolyn Forche, and Helen Vendley. (Harper Collins Publishers, 2000)

The photos were taken yesterday, right here inside my own personal ice. Thanks to Thea for the miniature creatures. They make me laugh.