It’s easy to dismiss the cold days of winter as “dead” — especially when there’s just a smattering of snow on the ground. The brisk gray days can sap of our vitality. The last few days of blustery winds took my breath a few times while I walked. When I removed my gloves to snap photos, within minutes the crisp air had chilled my bare fingers numb. If I stood still it felt like, despite my layers, the warmth of my body was being sucked away. Yet it was just this stopping, allowing a moment for the scenes all about me to seep in, that revealed more than a bleak and frozen world.
I quickly saw there were several bluebirds, quietly puffing up their feathers as shields to the wind (no breath wasted on chatter), as they perched on chosen branches to take in the rays of rising sun. Somehow, amid the patches of icy snow they spotted tidbits of food, and darted to pluck something to eat off the ground, more intent on refueling than worrying that I watched them. The bright sparks of cobalt blue in their haunches and tails flashed against the white sheets of crusty snow, umber gray patches of earth, and ochre-toned grasses.
The high waters of the river flooded my ears with a steady, gentle backdrop roar. The soft metallic-jade color somehow made the clear water feel dense and rich. The powerful currents and swirling flows took on a hypnotic rhythm, framed by trees posted into bluish-white snowy banks. The cool tones dominate in the early morning hours, but they also make the random, humble, rust-colored leaf glow by contrast.
The leafless tree branches show off the directions of their warm-weather striving. The stalks of the grasses and brambles act like directional hashmarks that have chaotically yet carefullly recorded the wind flows over the landscape. And then there’s the patches of water, now frozen, revealing its resistance to solidifying with its tell-tale lines and ridges and lone twig, leaf, or blade of grass surrounded but bravely standing firm. The surface offers a strangely soothing dynamic of ovoid geometry that glimmers and sparkles on its edges. Here and there offering frosty views of the clouds and pale blue sky, and even glimpses of the warming golden sun. In so doing the static ice confirms the movement of the earth, the steady inexorable march of the seasons, the constant and rich current of life pulsing forward.
I quickly saw there were several bluebirds, quietly puffing up their feathers as shields to the wind (no breath wasted on chatter), as they perched on chosen branches to take in the rays of rising sun. Somehow, amid the patches of icy snow they spotted tidbits of food, and darted to pluck something to eat off the ground, more intent on refueling than worrying that I watched them. The bright sparks of cobalt blue in their haunches and tails flashed against the white sheets of crusty snow, umber gray patches of earth, and ochre-toned grasses.
The high waters of the river flooded my ears with a steady, gentle backdrop roar. The soft metallic-jade color somehow made the clear water feel dense and rich. The powerful currents and swirling flows took on a hypnotic rhythm, framed by trees posted into bluish-white snowy banks. The cool tones dominate in the early morning hours, but they also make the random, humble, rust-colored leaf glow by contrast.
The leafless tree branches show off the directions of their warm-weather striving. The stalks of the grasses and brambles act like directional hashmarks that have chaotically yet carefullly recorded the wind flows over the landscape. And then there’s the patches of water, now frozen, revealing its resistance to solidifying with its tell-tale lines and ridges and lone twig, leaf, or blade of grass surrounded but bravely standing firm. The surface offers a strangely soothing dynamic of ovoid geometry that glimmers and sparkles on its edges. Here and there offering frosty views of the clouds and pale blue sky, and even glimpses of the warming golden sun. In so doing the static ice confirms the movement of the earth, the steady inexorable march of the seasons, the constant and rich current of life pulsing forward.
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