How Cold the Branches Bear…

…the morning dark beyond the sill.

A line from a poor no-name slob of an unfinished poem from a project that is still not much more than a vague set of ideas orbiting a wobbly theme. Shiny!

Actually, late last year I decided that I wanted to do a project framed by the five classical elements, water, air, fire, earth, and space. Its form will almost certainly shapeshift for awhile, but I will be staying within that frame, continuing with the image/word combination I’ve developed over the past couple of years.

To that end, and inspired by walking about in the cold, I spent some quality time this weekend photographing the patterns of ice on glass.

I’m a water sign; I love long sunny afternoons spent at the local swimming hole or laying half in and out of the surf; long hot baths with Duke Ellington on the stereo; pounding thunderstorms; I’m tattooed with water (and f-stops!). In, on, around, or under, I dig water. But not so much snow and ice. Growing up, snow was something that you went to visit, rarely. Ice meant danger. It requires more layers of clothing than I want to wear. Only after living in Montana and, to a lesser extent, the Pacific Northwest, have I developed an appreciation for how lovely snowfall is or how beautifully quiet and still an ice-covered world can be.

I’ve been fascinated lately by the pattern of frosting and ice crystals on windows and wanted to play with that in a more controlled environment. These have obviously been manipulated for contrast and color, but all else is just what came out of the icebox at random.

And after all of the ice, some warm new words…

Firebuilding

What is there to firebuilding;
an airy heap of small and dry,
a trap to keep a spark.

I feed an ever more hungry bird;
lay down a triangle to flame and think
there is witchcraft in threes and kisses.

It keeps my pitch-streaked hands to task.
Here sunlight is costly and I smile for
the hiss and crackle from damp wood.