I Remember.

The antique paint chipped thermometer would not give up it's cache of mercury from it's frosted bulb even in the blinding brightness of the sun on the iced landscape. I remember peering through ice daggers and translucent unicorn crystal horns hanging from the eaves outside the picture window of my Vermont country home which commanded a view of the valley below. My breath formed a vapor mist on the glass as I strained to look down to the blurred pine tree reflections imbedded in the black ice driveway. The long drive coarsed an impassable mirrored arc down to the ice covered dirt road at it's end. That narrow road dropped rapidly from our drive and snaked into the valley. It was lined on one side with numerous trees, but on this day they were transformed into a sunny iced extravagansa of porcelain barked Maple trunks supporting heavily drooped crystaline mazes of branches and sparkling blown glass twigs. I remember walking through my breath and the only sound was the crunching of my boots through the frozen crust surface of the polished platinum field. The two houses in the valley below were releasing thin straight lines of undisturbed smoke which were calmly claimed by the azure skies. I remember stopping to watch with bated breath the spectacle of the sunshine crashing into thousands of icy tinkling twigs; swirling colors flashing around in an island of tall white Birch ice sculptures directly in front of me. The streaked paper bark was frozen into razor feathers and rustic belle petals protruding from glassed tiffany trunks. CRACK!!! The sound of an overloaded tree giving way under the weight of it's new load of glitter. Then I remember ...consciously breathing again through the frozen vapor ice collected on my mustache and beard, thinking a thanksgiving prayer, while I slowly crunched back to my home with an arm load of firewood. inspired by Laura McKenzie's Winter Adornement contest.