Thoughts drifting, like snow.
A single flake suspended in the air, an updraft momentarily halting its spiraling downward float. Sparkles. Tumbles. Falls, swaying to and fro as it falls - no longer caught in the gust, drawn inexorably to the clutches of gravity.
Infinitely spread about me. They drift. They fall. They rise in moments of whirling splendor as, like the exhalation of some ancient dryad the wind sweeps them from the earth into the sky from which they came.
Tart, sharp, biting, piercing, icy, a blend of smell all but impossible to describe: this is the world in which I walk winter. Incomparably pale blue skies tangled with skeins of cotton-white cloud, then a sweeping storm of equally pale gray from which the wonder sweeps down, and like a child I am caught in amazement, my eyes riveted on the heavens and the mystery drifting toward me. Each one unique, crafted in a perfect crystalline design, mingling together as the wind blows harder, coalescing into an mass through which no light can penetrate, darkening the world.
The sun is falling: less seen than felt as the darkness deepens, trees creaking under the weight of heavy burdens of perfect white diamonds of water. Their ever green needles and brown wood stand in stark opposition to the dusk and the beauty falling from it. My steps crunch on old snow turned to ice over a layer of long-shed bark and needles and winter-dead grass and brambles torn by the family of deer that passed this way sometime earlier in the day.
I am alone. There is mystery, here. I am not lonely. There is peace. A kind of silence - silence that is quieting and not disquieting. It is right. This is solitude, but not loneliness... Like the muffling of every sound through the gently falling snow, my thoughts are gentled and stilled.
This is no daring etude: rather, a tender nocturne, though it is not yet dark. Viola set against the dark texture of a low piano - but no chords: single notes struck against the background of silence, calling out some melody unheard before in all man's long history, the imagination of the divine painted on a canvas grander than any made by hands of man. Fluting wind against softly groaning earth, the trees a tapestry and painting finished all in one.
A stream in the forest, quietly murmuring as it rushes under what will be a starless sky of perfect dark in an hour. Cold and clear, it slides effortlessly across pale tan rocks worn smooth by the steady passing of the years. Little crystals born of heaven fleet across it, just above its surface, caught in the eddies of air born off the water. They touch its surface and vanish, subsumed into its flow. Or they dance again into the heavens to tangle with their brothers, vanishing once more into the fairy waltz.
The night begins to deepen. The forest has become solemn, still, awaiting the long cold night ahead with a sort of delight, a wondrous anticipation that flurries about me with every step. No fear, nor restless excitement: but a still and contemplative anticipation of the beauty to come. A foot of white perfection will coat the ground, piled on every branch and stem, come dawn's first pale golden gleam.
And my thoughts drift, like snow, in the night.
Peace.
A single flake suspended in the air, an updraft momentarily halting its spiraling downward float. Sparkles. Tumbles. Falls, swaying to and fro as it falls - no longer caught in the gust, drawn inexorably to the clutches of gravity.
Infinitely spread about me. They drift. They fall. They rise in moments of whirling splendor as, like the exhalation of some ancient dryad the wind sweeps them from the earth into the sky from which they came.
Tart, sharp, biting, piercing, icy, a blend of smell all but impossible to describe: this is the world in which I walk winter. Incomparably pale blue skies tangled with skeins of cotton-white cloud, then a sweeping storm of equally pale gray from which the wonder sweeps down, and like a child I am caught in amazement, my eyes riveted on the heavens and the mystery drifting toward me. Each one unique, crafted in a perfect crystalline design, mingling together as the wind blows harder, coalescing into an mass through which no light can penetrate, darkening the world.
The sun is falling: less seen than felt as the darkness deepens, trees creaking under the weight of heavy burdens of perfect white diamonds of water. Their ever green needles and brown wood stand in stark opposition to the dusk and the beauty falling from it. My steps crunch on old snow turned to ice over a layer of long-shed bark and needles and winter-dead grass and brambles torn by the family of deer that passed this way sometime earlier in the day.
I am alone. There is mystery, here. I am not lonely. There is peace. A kind of silence - silence that is quieting and not disquieting. It is right. This is solitude, but not loneliness... Like the muffling of every sound through the gently falling snow, my thoughts are gentled and stilled.
This is no daring etude: rather, a tender nocturne, though it is not yet dark. Viola set against the dark texture of a low piano - but no chords: single notes struck against the background of silence, calling out some melody unheard before in all man's long history, the imagination of the divine painted on a canvas grander than any made by hands of man. Fluting wind against softly groaning earth, the trees a tapestry and painting finished all in one.
A stream in the forest, quietly murmuring as it rushes under what will be a starless sky of perfect dark in an hour. Cold and clear, it slides effortlessly across pale tan rocks worn smooth by the steady passing of the years. Little crystals born of heaven fleet across it, just above its surface, caught in the eddies of air born off the water. They touch its surface and vanish, subsumed into its flow. Or they dance again into the heavens to tangle with their brothers, vanishing once more into the fairy waltz.
The night begins to deepen. The forest has become solemn, still, awaiting the long cold night ahead with a sort of delight, a wondrous anticipation that flurries about me with every step. No fear, nor restless excitement: but a still and contemplative anticipation of the beauty to come. A foot of white perfection will coat the ground, piled on every branch and stem, come dawn's first pale golden gleam.
And my thoughts drift, like snow, in the night.
Peace.
Chris ... this is amazing. Would you consider transforming it into a poem? I think it would be powerful in poetry form ... your words flow like poetry.
ReplyDeleteWaiting to hear the piece of music that accompanies this. I know you and I can sense there is a composition floating and whirling upon the wind of your being like the snow of the poem you write.
ReplyDelete