On windy days, when the sky is full of restless clouds, a dark bruise crowns the line of pines and winter bare branches that mark the shore. A purple watercolour blush, it bleeds up into an endless firmament where the cold gusts and driven clouds devour it whole.

     It would be easy to believe that January and February are only made of driven snow and biting winds if winter did not throw us a bone of a sunny day here while the earth sleeps.  

     The rare sun in a cornflower blue sky festooned with puffs of giant clouds that swim through the air like white vaporous whales is brilliant. The light of sun and sky and snow dazzles so that the eye can weep tears of joy or discomfort.

     Those days never last. What dawns bright is shaded by evening. Over night Old Man Winter howls around the house shaking the foundation and scratching at the walls with tree branches, ice stiff and brittle. Often the new day finds another layer of white covering the fields and trees.

     Down on the shore the waves continue their ceaseless motion, building up layer upon layer of ice. The spray rises in the air, misting fingers of beach tossed driftwood and creating bridges that reach far out into the lake. Round floes bob up and down in the surf, concave saucers formed by the motion of the water and fickle heat of a winter sun.

     Against the skies of blue grey, black vees describe the geometry of flight. The croaks of jays and the peeps of chickadees are hushed by a flash of the hunting hawk’s red tail feathers. Only the mourning doves call soft and low in the cold winter light.

     The weight of the night pushes down like a giant hand compressing the air until it bleeds moisture, soaking the grass and sinking into the flattened earth. There is no wind and the emptiness that surrounds me is so saturated that I could be moving through warm bathwater, gelid and thick. It swirls around my legs and sinks back with barely a ripple to mark my passage. The air tastes of copper and in the distance the sky blazes a violent flicker. Eerie and silent, there is no roll of thunder. The storm is still too far away. It's coming though and I wait, watching the distant horizon split open. There are glimpses of a false burning day before rapidly winding threads of dark rush in to reknit the tears. The wheat undulates a silken whisper. An echo of thunder rolls into a roar and the sudden wind is like a wild dog let loose to savage the fields. The wheat cowers. The limbs of the trees thrash in confusion and the leaves hiss out their bruising. Like the surge of a great wave the storm crests the yard. The current pushes against the damp heat and then with a great heave washes it away. All that remains is the wind and finally the rain. In the dark it does not seem to fall from the sky but rise up from the earth seeping through the concrete of the patio in silver dollar sized drops of dark grey blood.

     Time rolls on, a relentless tide. The measurement of its passage is painted in the mechanical rhythm of the timepiece and the unmarked tide of nature’s cycle. The polar opposites of life and death are the compass of this plane’s existence.

     All spring long the business of life washes on the edge of awareness. The birds that come and go mark the current. Nests are built, eggs are laid and chicks are born. The naked skin sprouts eider and then feathers in mottled clumps that purport a life amongst the clouds.

     The distance between branch and sky is a greater one than most might think. We mark the first day of summer as determined by the Gregorian calendar and the position of the sun and moon. Birds mark the change from the raw green of birth to fruition in a perilous learning curve that leaves the young vulnerable and earthbound waiting until time and genetic memory induce the safeguards that perpetuate the species as a whole.

     The wheat is a golden glow spread out across the horizon. Impatient for the sky, the very young wait out their time nestled in its protective heights. Awkward and weak, they sit in false enclaves hidden from dire straights and natural selection until the gifts that buffer them from the harshness of their environment surface. It can not be called a game when the stakes are so very high. The price of failure to thrive, to survive, is glaringly displayed in the bright light of day.

     Covered in ants and advertised by the curtain of flies that buzz in a coroner’s cloud the fallen sing a mute chorus to the vulgarities of a black reality. For every feather that takes to the current, for every song that rises in the morning light, there is a voice that is stilled and wings that drain into the soil forever lost to the warm flow of the air.

     A small black mound of feathers lies broken in the rain nourished grass. Beetles dine and ants labour over and on the small dusky hill. Blank eyes stare upward to a sky that can’t be seen and therefore is no longer coveted. A delicate neck, barely covered in feathers, stretches out impossibly fragile and empty of song. The fledging that lies limp and broken on the bright green of the summer grass has bet on a long shot and come up short. It is a wager that we all make and while we might run hot for a span in the end we all pay out.

     There will be no long days of summer and crisp autumn idles followed by winter’s push to warmer shores for the earthbound. There is only this silent testimony to destiny and the law that binds us all.    

The firmament divides somewhere overhead. The eastern sky is a cherub’s blue, tonsured in cumulus white. The western sky is a mutinous grey, fallen wings cast out from above. The house sits below the split. The facing windows hang out over the precipice, both in front of and then inside the quickening storm.  

The wind is a dog that shakes the trees, throttling the tops, jerking them back and forth. Across the fields the lightning flares, silent at first but then it kisses the ground. Burnt air flinches back and the music of the universe spills out of the light. The thunder is a work calloused hand that scrapes and rasps across the skin. A drop slaps hard on the windowsill, and then a second, and then a third. Petals fall from the apple trees chasing the storm to the ground. The rain is an airborne river and the small windows of mesh that pattern the screens fill up and hide the garden and the yard.

A door slams shut overhead and the sudden realization that the bedroom windows are open sends us running up the stairs. We hurry from room to room, forcing down the sashes, wiping the windowsills, laying towels down on the wet carpets, grumbling and laughing a little. Laughing not because it was funny, but because the wind was so strong, the lightning was so wild and the gunshot cracks and black rumble that sang accompaniment as it split the air had held us frozen and made us forget that we were safe inside.  The sky flickers with diamond fire. An alto chord tears free to grind along the spine and we shiver within the embrace of the windows and the roof and the walls.

The tulip heads are bent and heavy with the remnants of rain. The wind has died down and the sun has returned to warm the air. The green bite of the garden after the rain comes in through the newly opened windows. The back end of the storm hangs in the eastern sky, a clear line drawn across the horizon. It sends back a parting roll of thunder that fades into the drip, drip, drip of sodden trees.

The rain is an omen, falling in pebble sharp raps. A temperate wanderer meets a winter bare sleeper. Lips part and ruptured clay spews forth a breath held warm and secret in the throat of the dreamer. Twilight over flows its banks and bleeds into the day. Stranded in the flood the black trees are stick bare and naked, caught in the murky half light. Upright and stiff they fight the rising current, hands outspread, reaching to a sky already lost under the onslaught. Choking in the cloudy ocean, overcome at last, they sink below the waves their accusing eyes lost in the greasy tide. Awash in still waters the world expands into solitude.  

The scale has tipped and the night slides into the hours that close on dawn. Unforgiving, the caustic breath of glacial air is an acid bite that wounds the throat and burns the lungs. The silence of a sleeping world is pierced by the sharp break of crusted snow underfoot. The protest of fractured crystal banks from the wall of pines and races back through the thin cold air. The winter cirrus, a haze of hexagonal gauze, surrounds the moon and crowns her with a rainbow halo. That luminous pearl, no coy satellite amongst her diamond courtiers, blazes out from under the veil of her father's shadow while reflected shades of sky wash the snowy fields in lapis waves.

     The pale green grass crunching underfoot is an oddity half way through winter. Frozen drops glitter like diamonds in a multiplied mimicry of the black jeweled sky above. The rising of the pale winter sun leaks wan rays that stir the air sending a haze up across the unnaturally naked fields. January should see the lean wolves of winter race across the land, their voices a howl of wind singing a discordant lullaby for the resting earth. Instead the vagaries of an ill defined term have left us marooned, abandoned on the plane of mud soaked dishabille that greets the dawn of each new day. The hoary dragon of winter, toothless and bewildered is lost somewhere along the path. A damp dementia has clouded the crystal mind leaving will and purpose limp and impotent, a pale shadow of the might that once bore the name.

     Divested of cold cover, exposed and abandoned, the sinew of the earth is laid bare and open to the sky. Shivering under an alien light the burnt umber of loam and soft wool of wood tendon border the ochre wisps of sodden gleanings. The hours melt and pool into one endless grey moment as the ground waits to warm or cool, victim to the whim of this sunken muddy season. Don’t look to spring; he’s a distant hero traveling beyond the horizon. We can no more move forward than back. The sails lay empty and slack waiting for the pace of the season to hurry us towards the vernal equinox. Becalmed, even the sharp suffering of purgatory’s expiation would be a welcome change from this milquetoast limbo.

Sound like ocean surf surrounds the house. The rising wind swallows it whole. Caught by the undertow, the unwieldy ship of home sinks to the bottom of the swell. Blind in the dark the house rides the surge straining and groaning in a current of sound.

Buffeting by tempest gusts the passing trees scramble for purchase, their skeletal fingers rake windows and eaves. The pale hands of wind drowned pirates shake the glass and drag gales of chains and rusty anchors across the roof.

Leaves and branches in streaming tidal flows frantically cyclone. Swirling down, the house and the swell, the ghosts and the trees, all fall out of the bottom of the sky.

Light cuts the dark as the night drains away leaving the house a beaten salvage on the landlocked shore of a brand new day.

Soul eater is the name of the January Rain grey skies.

The Milky clouded eyes of the dead year gaze sightlessly skyward filtering the day to perpetual twilight. Icy entrails steam as the warm rain falls in acid runnels eviscerating the gentle swells of wind driven snow. Charcoal grey stick bare fingers rend the thick air as the trees grasp for purchase sinking deeper into the weeping flesh of an earth so unexpectedly awakened.

The sky is falling...

Dying and unremarked by thought or reasoning, a star expands breaching the limits to break apart in infinitesimal fragments. The exodus of that great conflagration, lost and blind, will travel 40 years in a frigid black wilderness to find the sky of this blue jewel.

Miniscule meteorites, bits of star, speed through the atmosphere and the heavenly firmament is lost to view. Battalions of warriors, clad in white and armed with milky swords of ice, drop heavily through the air. A veil falls, mist and windblown, to filter the light in dim shades of grey. No battle cry breaks the silence, only a gentle hiss as each traveler joins the host massed below.

Earthbound at last, here they will rest and wait for the season's change to join their souls within this new home. At the turning of the sphere they will bathe again in a kindred brother's warmth.

     A bird’s eye view of the yard shows an intricate design of travel and play. Like steps marked off on a dance chart the composition as a whole tells a story that the individual imprints, by the nature of close interpretation, don't know. Only from above, when viewed from the second story window, does the ballet reveal itself. From one edge of the snow covered stage to the other the choreography is evident in spots and smears and steps and hollows.

     A perimeter path, which is walked in the frigid dark before the house retires for the night, borders the yard. This pas de deux is defined by a rhythm that is quick and light, duty hurried by the outer chill and the promise of a warm bed. Random gestures and sweeps litter the yard; the tempo of varied passage is indicated in depth and distance. The afternoon light paints those steps in drifted hollows of pale blue reflecting the colour of the sky.

     A visitor to the yard has left his signature in hesitant ovals grouped by four. The circles are spaced unevenly as a wary eye and twitching nose determined the speed of the dance. Still the path is straight as it cuts across the driveway running from the winter bare hedge to the pale-blanketed fields beyond.

     Concave rows in different widths record the passage of frozen balls sent spinning across the white expanse. Smaller furrows that end in miniscule piles are the result of an extended search for arctic treasures. Never alone, all these impressions are dueted by the passage of a constant companion, four feet that dance all the steps. Here they are spaced close together in a stately waltz. There the star player has leapt high leaving only the memory of two feet. The path veers and the steps become elongated, spread out by the speed of the dance. As with all ventures of youth and energy the scars remain of inexperience and exuberance. Spinning too fast, the flurry of spills and rolls is noted for all to see.

     There is a stick and a ball under the tree in a hollow that is soft grey and shadowed. Two sets of steps in concert range to the back door and then disappear up the snow-covered stairs to the kitchen.    

     Viewed from the upstairs' window one can see that the ballet is only on intermission. The snow covered stage waits for the second act. 

     The wind is full of a coward's bravado. The downdraft worries the snow into drifts and hollows as it struts and swaggers about lording it over the yard. Ever the playground bully, it browbeats the trees and pushes the last of the leaves to and fro above the white risers. Caught by surprise the icy draught stops, startled, upon hearing a distant rumble. Suddenly uncertain the frightened tempest turns tail to seek out a haven, safe from the looming unknown.

      All reason and sanity is cast aside as the cowed current rattles the windows and bangs on the doors to be let in. The ground trembles while the air grows heavy with a monstrous clamour. A metal juggernaut in shades of grey and gold, crowned by a sapphire gem, looms up through the sleeting white. Head down, its blind passage sends sprays of snow rising like crystal rainbows to shine in the wintry sun. Metal meets asphalt and sparks arc out to the side as its horn tears up the hoarfrost covered obsidian. The wind whimpers and cringes round the foundation, head down and eyes averted. The dissonance reaches a tumultuous summit only to fade away as terror lumbers off to devour the land further down the road.

     Danger passed, the wind emerges to take up its bluff and bully. Swaggering about the yard the frozen bluster kicks the drifts and hectors the trees but keeps an listening ear pricked up just in case.

Condensation forms a new frame on the clear border between warm and cold. A puff of breath will fill the empty canvas now ready for smiley faces and backwards letters. The concrete stair, stiff and frozen, echoes the bleak sky. Odd shaped pearls of soft snow tremble in the lee of the stone, taking shelter from the inclement weather. An icy arctic river, bitter and wind scoured from the fields, flows across the road. Headlights carve a tunnel through the gloomy wintry night. The white wasps of cold sting and swarm only to fall behind impotent and lost in the inky vacuum of the light's passing.

     The wind is never ending, roaring and crashing, pounding like waves on a distant beach.  Invisible surf whips the trees into a frenzied dance silhouetted dark against the endless sky. Points of light flicker in a wild syncopation keeping time with the feral music of the heavens. The moon clad in rainbow corona sits a distant wallflower flanked by stalwart Mars and fickle Venus. The primitive rhythm, savage and free, is a reminder of the scope of all mankind's rule and order. Egos laid to waste, minute and storm tossed we ride the crests and flounder in the wells unmarked by a massive ocean of ferocious time and chaotic tide.  Indian summer seems a distant memory. The ungentle dogs of autumn have come to savage the land.

     Feral and wild they travel in packs baying out a requiem for the passing year. Delicate shades of crimson and gold burn and wither in icy fires of frenzied onslaught. The bare limbs of naked trees bower a funeral pyre built up of corpulence, rain and wind. Ashy snow will cradle the ember, hidden safe from grey bloodied jowls and cold snapping teeth. The lullaby of winter will wipe the tears away. In sweet slumber wounds will heal and scars will fade until the light of spring rouses the sleeper. The warming earth will fan the flames and the phoenix will rise fecund and strong to take to the air once again.

     We are a small glimmer in the shadows of giants.

Persephone lingers in Demeter's reprieve while the season hangs on the winds of change. The cold hands of Hades wait to claim a bride. The austere sky plays witness to a torment never ending. Pomegranate rubies seed the clouds with tears of a sanguine lament. The evergreen keeps its own council. It will wear no heart upon its sleeve. It is the oak and maple, elm and ash that will harrow, hurt and grieve. The bowered heights blush an agony of wounded crimson and gold. The fury of a sweet season's ruination screams upon the wind to wail and moan and rend autumnal robes leaving only outstretched arms stick gaunt and naked against the darkening sky.