Snow Falling on Pine Boughs
The snow swooped and flowed in fluffy, thick bundles, and it came down in swift determination. In the space of a mere few hours we received well over 15 cm, which was just fine, since we badly needed that snow to cover the icy remains of our previous snowfalls, transformed from the softness of new-fallen snow to sheer glass by the freezing rains that followed. And can anyone think of anything more beautiful to behold on a Saturday morning when you've slept in late, to get up and look out the bedroom window to behold snow thickly littering the sky with its promise of opportunities for the day to come?
This snow was, besides being much anticipated and beautiful to behold, also very wet, so that wherever it fell it stayed and it built up and became a snow structure of fabulous invention on anything and everything it settled upon. Nothing outperforms nature at this game of fabulous, ethereal, tenuous art. Perfect for sliding for area children. Perfect for rolling into great heavy gobs of packing snow the better to hit you with, my dear friend. Perfect for shaping into those solid orbs which, when packed together, emerge as your friendly neighbourhood snowman, the better to greet you with, dear onlooker.
This is the kind of snow that absorbs everything into its complete pristine whiteness. Vision becomes impaired when the sun crisps up the glittering white, bearing tree branches down, down to sweep in a gentle arc over the landscape. Not so simple to shake branches clear of this type of snow; it clings, it refuses to sprinkle off its host, and only time and sun will gradually clear trees and branches of their unbearable burden of glory. This is the kind of snow that muffles sound, so in its presence one is embraced by its white silence. This is the kind of snow which, though thick underfoot, scrunches nonetheless as one pads quietly in its presence.
Birches and beech, mere juveniles in the order of their tender age, bow long and low in obeisance to their new master, this full mantle of tender white. Young trees which managed to survive the relentless ice storm of 1998 with their long slender trunks in perpetual arcs are now brought lower to the ground. Cedars bend under the unaccustomed weight of their bough-filled snowpack. Towering old pines, their needle-full branches and boughs brought in a sweeping arc to touch the ground look like ballgown-clad patricians. Yet here and there appear snow-laden limbs of pine and spruce severed from their bodies, littering the snow-soft ground.
The sun reaches its bright rays through the interstices of laden branches to further illuminate frozen white crystals. The trees, shrubs, become an intricate cathedral of shining truth, a place where one views nature's wonderful caprice. Our minds, our memory is not equal to the task of recalling the opulence of this moment. We must savour it for the moment, regret its transience, and consider ourselves blessed for the opportunity to revel in this magic kingdom.
posted by Pieface @ Sunday, January 22, 2006
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