Barely snow, just enough for a two-hour school delay, ice encasing twigs and needles, smooth and clear and full around as if dipped, as even as a candy-maker’s dream, no Achilles’ heel or naked shortbread where anyone held on, only light, a sense of depth and sparkle, even on a dark day.
The lowest branch on the fir tree looks as if it might soon surrender to gravity, or saturated slush, possibly age. I’ve been listening a lot, sometimes running out of patience. But every so often, I hear something I didn’t expect to hear.
And drip drip drip I take the compost out (too cold and wet to want to go outside, but it’s not dark yet, it’s only raining, today this is likely as good as it gets) and I hear the plunk plunk plunk, a little extra rattle, a little verve, and there it is, a rain and snowmelt drum kit under the deck, found music like a found poem.