a blue spruce heavy with snow
After a fresh snow
Even a little moon
Brings big light
The storm left, unspent, passing on elsewhere, blowing across the flats of Eastern Colorado, then up towards the Great Lakes, releasing its wrath along the route. Now I hear these same clouds may share their bounty towards the Northeast. Where does this energy come from, relentless and unyielding? A winter storm feeds on its own fury leaving a glacial path in its raging wake. It allows us to recover without remorse. Remorse is of our creation, not that of the storm.
The sky is left clear and cold. The temperature drops to sixteen below zero. Mid day it raises it to sixteen above. There is relief. We hide from the wind and blowing snow, and seek the meager efforts of the sun. Try as it may it is weak now, humble, of minimal impact; long shadows and diffused radiation will not generate the warmth the flat white surface of snow reflects back into the thin mountain air.
It is on these frigid mornings that even the air will freeze. Is that what it is, that hazy layer high in the sky to the west? At first, it looks like clouds, but without the relief of the warmer temperatures clouds promise in winter. We see this instead when our mountain is at its coldest, fifteen below and colder. On those mornings, the sky is not clear as one might expect. There is a soft screen, pink in earliest light. This vapor, frozen moisture, clings to the sky like hoarfrost on the willows. It is odd.
As the air warms, how with such low and little light, the sky clears. The blue above us in the crisp afternoon air is pure. Eternal. Unspoiled. No artist would dare to render a sky so blue. But they could, they should. The intensity of the perfect expanse of this cobalt sky seems high and untouchable, reminding us how little we are. It is vast and overwhelming. We swim in this sea of white, deep, deep under the big blue.
yes, the sky was really that blue...