winter's ways
Jan. 14th, 2020 11:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
marycatelliThe rain is perhaps freezing, but definitely forming droplets on the trees that catch the streetlight and glow like diamonds.
A car has two tracks behind it leading out into the snow. The logical thing is that the driver was starting to leave when he heard something was canceled (and drove back very precisely) but it LOOKS like an Adams Family thing where a car materializes just a bit off its parking place.
The sun is a watery sort of glow behind the thick clouds. All is gray, even it.
The thing about nighttime clouds is that you have to stop to remember that since it's reflecting the street lights, the light part must be the cloud, and the dark the sky. It can be impossible to tell which are the shapes and which the voids by form.
The moon rises in the east, where the sunset, circling round, still lingers: dark cream moon against dark pink and orange and blue. It does not look large. Perhaps it is that the branches crisscrossing over it do not give a good idea of distance, being fractal. Night progresses, and the cream stands more brilliant against the dark sapphire blue, with the branches still crossing over it. Then the moon slowly turns brilliantly white against the black sky -- though on the other sky, the dusky shades of sunset, rose and peach and violet, still linger on sky and cloud.
The day of the freezing rain, the lawn is all palely green and shining as the ice crystallizes on each blade. By morning, it is still more pale, like the green of thick ice on a rock-face.
I drive by the roundabout a night. Bushes are set with white lights, tinged with cream. Lower bushes are all aglow with a bluer shade of white -- because, encased in ice, they are lit up from the headlights of cars. You must look closely to be sure what sort of light it is.
On a pine sapling, not much taller than a man, a hawk perches on the lowest bough, its belly creamy and its back brown, fiercely studying the oncoming traffic. Further along the way, a hawk sits in the grass of the median, as if it were a perch.
The river is choppy with ice floes, spotty white among the dark waters.
The forest looks red on the gray day. Some of it coppery leaves, both fallen and clinging to saplings; some dried grass that turned ruddy; some of it ripe berries; much of it brush touched with red.
The day is misty. Beyond the trees there is only pure white. Only memory allows me to know it is over the lake.
The clouds cover the sky, but are pale. The dry trees are gray, and even silvery. The dead leaves and the grasses are pale, and even the coppery leaves still clinging to the saplings are bright. Yet the street lights still glow, and the effect is uncanny.
A gray squirrel runs toward a willow, and a black squirrel starts on the shadowed bark. It had been invisible to me until it moved.
The moon is rising. At least, an orangey lump like a plastic dome is pushing its way up. At least it moves swiftly, high enough to clearly round, and then over the horizon entirely, in few minutes.
A car has two tracks behind it leading out into the snow. The logical thing is that the driver was starting to leave when he heard something was canceled (and drove back very precisely) but it LOOKS like an Adams Family thing where a car materializes just a bit off its parking place.
The sun is a watery sort of glow behind the thick clouds. All is gray, even it.
The thing about nighttime clouds is that you have to stop to remember that since it's reflecting the street lights, the light part must be the cloud, and the dark the sky. It can be impossible to tell which are the shapes and which the voids by form.
The moon rises in the east, where the sunset, circling round, still lingers: dark cream moon against dark pink and orange and blue. It does not look large. Perhaps it is that the branches crisscrossing over it do not give a good idea of distance, being fractal. Night progresses, and the cream stands more brilliant against the dark sapphire blue, with the branches still crossing over it. Then the moon slowly turns brilliantly white against the black sky -- though on the other sky, the dusky shades of sunset, rose and peach and violet, still linger on sky and cloud.
The day of the freezing rain, the lawn is all palely green and shining as the ice crystallizes on each blade. By morning, it is still more pale, like the green of thick ice on a rock-face.
I drive by the roundabout a night. Bushes are set with white lights, tinged with cream. Lower bushes are all aglow with a bluer shade of white -- because, encased in ice, they are lit up from the headlights of cars. You must look closely to be sure what sort of light it is.
On a pine sapling, not much taller than a man, a hawk perches on the lowest bough, its belly creamy and its back brown, fiercely studying the oncoming traffic. Further along the way, a hawk sits in the grass of the median, as if it were a perch.
The river is choppy with ice floes, spotty white among the dark waters.
The forest looks red on the gray day. Some of it coppery leaves, both fallen and clinging to saplings; some dried grass that turned ruddy; some of it ripe berries; much of it brush touched with red.
The day is misty. Beyond the trees there is only pure white. Only memory allows me to know it is over the lake.
The clouds cover the sky, but are pale. The dry trees are gray, and even silvery. The dead leaves and the grasses are pale, and even the coppery leaves still clinging to the saplings are bright. Yet the street lights still glow, and the effect is uncanny.
A gray squirrel runs toward a willow, and a black squirrel starts on the shadowed bark. It had been invisible to me until it moved.
The moon is rising. At least, an orangey lump like a plastic dome is pushing its way up. At least it moves swiftly, high enough to clearly round, and then over the horizon entirely, in few minutes.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-17 01:15 am (UTC)This was from a spring freeze a few years ago:
The sun came out
Trees are lined with light, looking like frozen fireworks. Stars sing on every branch and carelessly twinkle across the ground. Silver armor has its price: The trees groan instead of whisper, and pelt me with clear-ambered buds.
The sun hides behind a cloud, and in the afternoon's warm air the trees will throw down their spears of ice, but for a while there was a rare glory in the meadow.
no subject
Date: 2020-01-17 03:32 am (UTC)And thank you for a lovely scene!