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
12/25/2019
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.
1/15/2018
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.
1/1/2018
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.
12/20/2016
Thick hoarfrost gives the sun rising through the trees a soft, glittery nimbus, and the aging snowpack has regained the sparkle of youth.
1/13/2014
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.
1/3/2013
Sparkles on the snow seem to float on another plane. Tree branches closest to the sun shine like knights in armor from the rime.
11/21/2012
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.
12/3/2011
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.
11/2/2011
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.
10/31/2011
Hoarfrost on every grass blade, branch and twig, as if the world has suddenly aged overnight. A white-throated sparrow’s tremulous song.
2/23/2011
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.
1/31/2011
Thickening contrails stripe the sky. Two ravens fly side-by-side over the house, trading hoarse commentary. The blur of hoarfrost.