Friday, January 21, 2022

Friday Ramble, Canvas, Orchestra and Chorus


The thermometer is hovering around -30 (Celsius) this morning, and a rowdy north wind cavorts across the roof, rollicking and blustering through the sleeping trees and shrubberies in the garden, making frozen oak branches ring like bells. Icicles embellishing the eaves behind the house are abstract glossy confections, streaked with gold and silver and filled with tiny bubbles. Exuberant gusts dislodge pine needles, brittle twigs and shards of ice that skate blithely across roof shingles, then plummet clattering over the eaves into the deep snowdrifts wrapping the house.

Advised to remain indoors, I slip outside for a few minutes anyway and snap photos of nearby trees and icicles, chimneys and sky. Wrapped up and looking for all the world like a yeti (or an abominable something anyway), I stand in the garden and capture a few images, try to figure out how in the world I can describe everything, the perfect light, the burnished hues of the icicles, the emeralds of the evergreens, the blues and violets of the snow, the buttery siding on my neighbor's kitchen wall, the scarlet of a male cardinal as it flies into the cedar hedge.

The icicles communicate the colors and shapes of the day without any help from me at all. They rattle, chatter and chime, sing Gilbert and Sullivany duets with the wind occasionally (mostly bits from Iolanthe), pretend they are tubular bells at other times or recite epic stanzas from the Poetic Eddas. The Norse elements of their performance are apt - at times it has been cold enough here for Ragnarök, and we sometimes wonder if this isn't the Fimbulwinter, the walloping winter to end them all.

With all the elemental performances on offering this morning, no words, or at least not many words, are needed from this old hen. I can just stand here in a snowdrift with the camera, get out of its way (and my own way) and let it see the world without trying to impose my perspective on its thoughtful and loving journey.

Out of the blue, a thought comes as I turn to go back inside. It is the images that are capturing me this morning, and not me capturing them. It's a Zen thing.

2 comments:

Tabor said...

You have captured it beautifully and NOT got in the way. I envy your perception, perspective and style.

Kiki said...

You are doing an awesome job of describing this morning. I have luckily never lived in such cold temps..... although the coldest I found nearly unbearably cold was in Toronto suburbs in the 70th and in Zermatt in the late 70th (- 21C).
I wish I could 👍🏻 'like' this post for all eternity but I can keep it in my ❤