‘Snew? Snow. Snow what?
New snow swallows our driveway
Now our car’s snowhere
Found art: A completely smooth-surfaced snow sculpture, with shapely flowing lines rising to a rounded summit like an old mountain, something in the Appalachians. Somebody, or something, has fashioned a terra-formed geological formation in our driveway. It was a very cold night to work. Nothing out there, as far as I could imagine, except the wind. And the snow, the medium, the wind could work with.
Found art: now I have to find my car.
After the storm blows through, fast but very efficient – according to reports dropping several inches of snow per hour – the sun came out and we had a nice morning for shoveling. It wasn’t heavy wet snow. But it had a heft to it, and it had filled all the empty places cleared since the last storm – just about a week before – so in between the banks something more than a foot of fresh snow filled the stairs, the walks, the sidewalks, the driveway. Even in these modest dimensions it was tiring work.
I didn’t want to drive anywhere, because I couldn’t imagine how there would be anywhere to park once you got somewhere, so I left the car untouched.
Later I went out and took photos of the back garden and the icicles forming from the roof, growing along the side of the house, and extending over the outside of the window in this room. They kept growing for another day until it appeared I would have a parallel series of icy bars covering the window, and could only hope that the sun would penetrate threw the silvery translucence of ice to bring me news of the outside world. Was there a squirrel in the tree? Doing what? Birds? Neighbor activity on the large snow ridge erected next door by shovel for sledding opportunities.
Late Friday afternoon, after a much warmer day, my bars let go with a thundering crash.
I kind of miss them. Maybe icicles are winter flowers, growing in their-short lived season. Growing in airy minerals – air, water, sun, gravity. They grow down, not up. When they have unfolded to the full potential these circumstances permit, their glassy, elongated, tapered, pointy, perilous blooms come crashing down.
Snow still lies thick on the roof. Sun still melts. They’ll be back.
When Ice Flowers Fall, Watch Out
Ice blooms in winter
Glassy forms descend like bars
sealing my window
No comments:
Post a Comment