Blue Ice

The garden waits, entombed in ice.
Life suspended, frozen time.
Stiff and brittle, brown and silent.
Bowing low to winter's will.

Buried deep, it hides within.
Fire smolders, glazed in rime.
Ice the master, cold its maiden.
Staying spring with binding chill.

Blue the ice, reflecting sky.
Bluer yet, on cobalt glazed.
Crystal water stretches down,
Straining for the frozen ground.

Ice has come, and ice will go.
Sun will shine, new longer days.
Winter trembles, spring will win.
 Melting cobalt's shining crown.

Just a little ode to the ice storm that really wasn't.  Yes, we got some ice here in the Flint Hills, perhaps a quarter inch, more likely an eighth.  Not nearly the shel-icing predicted and simply an expected moment of winter caused by the collide of different weather fronts.  The only bright color in my garden is now the bottle tree, a shining gem with a fantastic multi-faceted coating.  It was for this moment that I cemented the post deep in the ground years past, stalwart against the worst of wind and storm, to shout defiance at the winter's worst.  I could only wish today for sunshine, to make it glisten and shine, if only for the briefest moment. 

Still Here...Until the Icepocalypse

ProfessorRoush hasn't slept in, self-defined as any prone position of my body after 6:00 a.m., for years, but I had plans to make it until at least 7:00 a.m. this first morning of a three-day weekend.  Unfortunately, Miss Bella decided that she needed to protect me against the meanderings of monsters sneaking about the prairie and she moved up from the bottom of the bed to sit on my chest, facing the door and huffing to indicate her alarm, around 6:30 a.m.  When she didn't stop, I got up to prepare defenses against a home-invading horde of Huns and found that my mildly obese mutt was correct in all ways except for the home-invasion.  This particular horde of Huns was perfectly content to keep grazing around the mailbox, undisturbed by the barking Bella behind the glass storm door.  Perhaps they were expecting delivery of a late Christmas package and awaiting the mail truck.

We are expecting an ice storm here sometime tonight, and while I am happily anticipating the enforced solitude and the early garden pruning that the storm will initiate, the rest of Manhattan seems to be fearing that the end of civilization is upon us.  A quick trip to the grocery store for sliced ham on the way home last night revealed that the neighboring population had cleaned out the local supermarket of all bread, milk, sticks of butter, and, to my surprise, every package of lunch meat available.  I came home, amused and complacent in the knowledge that we have enough dry cereal and pasta in the house to tide us over until planting weather.  I'm even more secure that we can make it to warm weather after this morning's sighting of potential food on the hoof.   If they are going to eat my roses, the least they can do is hang around for dinner.

I'm quite serious about hoping that we get enough ice tonight to flatten the garden.  At the end of next week, temperatures are forecast in the mid-50's and I'm in a perfect mood to bulldoze and start over anyway, so que sera sera.  I miss you, Doris Day.  What a beautiful voice and bubbly actress.  Once upon a time, movies and television programming was more interesting than a group of profane idiots arguing over who should or shouldn't be sleeping with whom.