Winter’s cold

I woke up to a chilly world this morning.  When I hopped into my car at 5:15, the thermometer read -12℉.  Burr!  The humidity is low, the sky is clear, and the stars pop against the inky darkness like Valentine jewels tossed up into the firmament.

As much as my skin would like it to be, oh, 80 degrees warmer, I do love these frigid winter days.  I love the pink sunrise that reflects on the heaping mounds of fresh snow.  I love to hear the squeak and metallic crunch of super-cold snow under my feet.  (You can tell it’s really cold by the sound of your boots, walking.)  I love how clear and brilliantly blue the sky gets on a winter day, and how blindingly white the glittery snow is.  Light is bouncing everywhere, and yet warming little!

Today is Sylvia’s very last day of being 2-years-old.  It’s a sparkly day, and she is a sparkly girl.

Here’s a poem about February that makes me smile as things do when they hit upon the kernel of truth:

February

Around, above the world of snow
The light-heeled breezes breath and blow;
Now here, now there, they wheel the flakes,
And whistle through the sun-dried brakes,
Then, growing faint, in silence fall
Against the keyhole in the hall.

Then dusky twilight spreads around,
The last soft snowflake seeks the ground,
And through unshaded window panes
The lamp-rays strike across the plains,
While now and then a shadow tall
Is thrown upon the whitewashed wall.

The hoar frost cackles on the trees,
The rattling brook begins to freeze,
The well sweep glistens in the light
As if with dust of diamonds bright;
And spreading o’er the crusted snow
A few swift-footed rabbits go.

Then the night silence, long and deep,
When weary eyes close fast in sleep;
The hush of Nature’s breath, until
The cock crows loud upon the hill;
And shortly through the eastern haze
The red sun sets the sky ablaze.

James Berry Bensel

Happy winter, all!