Thin Ice

The last few years, our local prairie landscape's suffered what's called a snow drought. No fan of snow, the phrase feels distinctly counterintuitive to me.

Except I also know that all through the season - especially come spring when winter's dark rule crashes down - snowmelt is life.

And you can't beat snow for a classic winter scene, either. Generally, it's what makes working in the stinkin' cold worth it. Sometimes, you hardly even have to leave the car…

Earlier this month, after a good run of unusually warm weather that included a welcome stiff rain, the temperature was predicted to plunge overnight. The next morning, I walked out searching for signs of the fast freeze.

I'd hoped all that rain made my local prairie ditch run swift and deep. Then perhaps in the night a lattice of fresh ice was thrown over all the resolute brown, making work in the cold worth it.

The day after our national election and its outcome still in doubt, I went looking for late autumn splendor. Mostly I found prairie fire, which in hindsight seemed incredibly apt.

On my last working day of the year, amidst the pandemic I went looking for crystalline beauty and found only thin ice.

Right now, it's snowing. First of the season.

Tomorrow calls for cold driving rain. So 2020 ends with the landscape resolutely abstract and obscure.

Here's to 2021 and us keeping afloat through what'll undoubtedly be a long dark season.

Or at least until some sense of uplift and clarity returns to the now mostly confused and colorless landscape.