sugaring

Crackle of birch bark in the wood stove.
The days are getting lighter, but there's a lot of winter left. I've always thought that the first sign of spring was the frost heaves which appear to rise up like mushrooms on Rte 133 some time in February. I'm seeing some earlier signs of spring this year, however. We have a new young man from Ira who is handling the sugaring on our property this year. He has already been very busy in the past few weeks setting up his lines for spring. He is leaving lots of track marks in the snow along the fence lines in the back. 

icicles

When I got back from California recently, I saw something I hadn't seen for a long time, icicles. It's been a mild winter, and icicles have been in short supply. Of course, during the warmer months the only place you can find icicles is in the back of the freezer. This seems to be the way it goes for many of the phenomena in the natural world; snowflakes, dandelions, wild apples...they're either everywhere or nowhere to be found.

set

Say, what do you Vermonters do up there in the winter time?

Oh we set and think...mostly set.
Keith Jennison

wolf moon

Driving home from the Zen Center last night with an almost full moon, and snow on the ground. It looked like print from Sabra Field. Blue snow the color of a bird's egg. Yellow windows, black trees and houses. Blue grey smoke pouring out of chimneys. Full moon, the "Wolf" moon on Saturday night, one of the most magical nights of the year.

planets

Reading this morning in the Times about five planets aligned in the morning sky. Took a look outside, and it was clear. It was 5 degrees, but I put on my boots, and went outside to take a look (in my bathrobe). I saw Venus, Jupiter, and Mars. Saturn is very difficult to pick out because it looks just like stars in terms of size and color. Mercury hadn't yet risen above the mountains in the east. The article said it's been over 10 years since this last occurred. This is the phenomenon John wrote about when he was a student at Allegheny.
Crunch of snow underfoot.

Astrology
John Kahle

I was not born a believer
in higher beings or mysticism
but tonight I am able to write
because five planets are aligned,
tunnels in the black bone
of the Earth's skull. Emerging
out of blue, Jupiter burns
with dignity. I see Mars
first hand, quivering with scarlet
in the spring air like a tulip.
I can point to Saturn as the Moon
passes, though it is hardly distinctive
from the wash of stars and galaxies,
reduced by distance and detail.
But the borrowed light of Venus
relaxes the light years. It beckons
me and asks steadily if I will be back.
I say I haven't seen Mercury yet.
Nor the others vacationing in the south.

winter

Seven degrees this morning. Not as cold as last winter, but cold.

One must have a mind of winter

To regard the frost and the boughs

Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time

To behold the junipers shagged with ice,

The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun, and not to think

Of any misery in the sound of the wind,

In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land

Full of the same wind

That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,

And, nothing himself, beholds

Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

The Snow Man

Wallace Stevens

sighing

Whistling of the wind outside. Sighing of the old iron pot on the wood stove.

sun and snow

Clouds and snow as mother of pearl. Animal tracks in the snow.

snowflakes

Waking up in January in Vermont. Temperature at 10 degrees, feeling the cold, sky the color of oatmeal. It begins to snow, small flakes falling slowly and uniformly, like feathers. Just a few moments of attention, and the feeling of being filled up with helium.

Beautiful snowflakes, they fall nowhere.
Layman Pang