Daybreak finds each twig and weed encased in a quarter inch of ice. Every five minutes, another crack or crash from up on the ridge. The fog thickens.
icestorm
Dawn. A rustle in the leaves as bits of ice and half-frozen raindrops begin falling from the sky. From the lilac, the ticking of a wren.
Drizzle falling on an inch of sleet: the ground is white again. A pileated woodpecker’s hollow toc toc toc.
Freezing rain past, there’s a steady rattle from the woods as the ice cladding shatters, like a glass house casting stones at itself.
The icy trees have been dusted with snow, which still sticks in the wind when they make a sound like the dry grinding of snails’ teeth.
Freezing rain. A squirrel sits motionless on an icy branch as if deep in thought. From up on the ridge, a crack followed by a crash.
After hours of rain, woods and meadow are shrink-wrapped in ice. The black birch twigs creak as chickadees land to liberate a few seeds.
The remains of last night’s ice drip from the trees. A fine lacework of lilac shadow rocks back and forth beside the broken old dog statue.
Little sign left of last night’s ice storm, except beneath the black walnut trees in the yard: long, brown run-off stains on the snow.
The cellophane-crinkling sound of ice-sheathed branches swaying in the wind gradually gives way to the clatter of falling fragments.
The rain that drummed on the roof all night continues, but no longer turns everything it touches to ice like a cheap King Midas.
A faint shimmer of precipitation, and everything encased in a layer of ice as if the world’s been shrink-wrapped for overnight delivery.
Sun glints on ice-slicked branches and the glossy crust of the hardened snowpack. The distant, mechanical howl of a fire siren.
Freezing rain on a bed of sleet: like listening to thousands of pins dropping. A nuthatch ascends a tree head-first like a brown creeper.