An almost-out sun slowly erases the morning’s hoarfrost, except on the stream banks, where ferns of ice still hang over the dark water.
hoarfrost
A thick fur of hoarfrost on everything near the stream. A mile or two away, someone is firing off dozens of rounds on a semi-automatic.
In the weak sun, the icicles on the eaves are dull as plastic. A fine fur of frost coating the tree branches reminds me of my housekeeping.
Trees and dead weeds alike have grown a fine fur of hoarfrost. There’s no human noise for nearly ten minutes. Then a distant military jet.
Thick hoarfrost gives the sun rising through the trees a soft, glittery nimbus, and the aging snowpack has regained the sparkle of youth.
A faint dust of frost on the old goldenrod stalks along the creek. A crow chases a crow, yells breaking in the middle like a boy at puberty.
Sparkles on the snow seem to float on another plane. Tree branches closest to the sun shine like knights in armor from the rime.
Melting hoarfrost drips like rain. I watch one glistening drop change from red to yellow to violet as the sun inches into the deep blue sky.
Every branch and twig is white with rime, and overhead, a latticework of contrails. Three crows skim the treetops on their way to a mobbing.
I listen closely to the sparrow calls, trying to hear the white-crowned’s pink, and sit long enough to watch the hoarfrost turn to shine.
Hoarfrost on every grass blade, branch and twig, as if the world has suddenly aged overnight. A white-throated sparrow’s tremulous song.
Backlit by the sun, a hoarfrosted forest with ice still glittering underneath. I gape and run for my camera, a tourist on my own porch.
Thickening contrails stripe the sky. Two ravens fly side-by-side over the house, trading hoarse commentary. The blur of hoarfrost.