More Recently

Are we up to the present yet? I lose track. I thought we might have been, but no. Pages of notes. I smell, really must bathe and get out of this long underwear. Lady Diana asleep upstairs, wonderful conversation, great pot of chili and wine. Sidebar: walking up the driveway, which she handled with grace, a bottle of wine slipped out of her pack and skidded into the grader ditch. B over briefly. We discuss marriages and children. What day was that? The 29th, I think, there was so much bounce light through every window that I could write without candles until after 6 in the evening. The sky was soft white, almost no shadows, so quiet all day, the only exterior noise, other than exploding trees, was one train over in Kentucky, a lonesome sound, a country western song or maybe the blues. Some birds out feeding, as they must, after a couple of days on the nest. B was over, to borrow back his bow-saw, and we discussed the wind, frostbite, various dishes that could eaten directly from the skillet. I'll need to get to town, at some point, running low on necessary items. It's wicked outside. Five candles, the oil lamp, make some notes, go to bed. Bare existence. Lessons taught by an indifferent ridge. The 30th, finally sunlight, 10,000 sparkling crystals, the sassafras, especially, lose a load of ice and spring right back to the vertical, the driveway opens up, paths reappear. A quick trip to town, heavy pack: whiskey, juice, onions, tomato soup, chicken broth, rice, beans, bread on top; I feel like a Sherpa. Odd snow pack, snow, the layer of ice, more snow, almost strong enough to support you; walking is difficult, every step an adventure. Dry red maple starts a very hot fire, B had warned me to lay in sticks, his advice about burning what is always on the money, his knowledge of the local woods vast. Necessity. I had been using long-dead, bone-dry, dogwood and there isn't a better fuel for starting a hot fire, but it's all gone, harvested over the last several years. Red maple and sassafras burn hot even green. Wind and more snow. Breaking down to the ice layer on the back porch, for my drinks yields a couple of cut knuckles. I'm running out of bandaids. My hands are in terrible shape and my nails are worse. The next time I go out for ice I use a tool, a fork, to break off pieces. This landscape is sublime, under its weight of snow and ice, a concrete beauty, I'm humbled by the staggering immensity of it. God, I've gotten blood everywhere, candle light is lovely but there are deep shadows and I'm only alerted to the blood by a stickiness on my hands, dripping everywhere. Clean up by flashlight. It's hard to see. 31st, clear, intense blue cold but the sun has the trees shedding ice and smoking where the woodpeckers have bored holes. Small hike, over the head of the driveway, don't really want to go deep into the woods and disturb deer bedded down against the weather, this is the raw natural world, I'm immersed in the real. Very cold night, I have to get up and fetch Linda's hat. The sky is full of stars. Clear and cold, the house is frigid. Too many windows but the views are spectacular. In particular there is a large damaged sassafras that looks like an elephant in the dark. B found me at the head of the driveway, that open vista, standing there transfixed at the sound and sight of ice breaking off trees. A shattering scene. The snows melts off the ice on branches, and the ice shatters (expanding as it melts?), raining down, knocking off other ice in saplings and bushes, the cascade effect, I label it. B comes over for coffee and we talk about beauty. He offers warmer gloves. We agree on the depth of snow. The icicles are gone but the ice layer is good drinking ice, especially as I found an ice-pick; and it's very hard, a glassful will wear out several drinks. The blue sky was so intense it was shocking, I needed those Innuit slit-goggles, but I just wore sunglasses all day. A dark blue I don't know the name of, with a few thin low clouds that were being emitted by the hill-sides. Extremely local weather, because the air was dry and the clouds would disappear within a thousand feet. Sublimation. Evaporation-transpiration. "Everything is here, everything is open and visible." George Oppen. Culvert duty tomorrow. B's call, and a good one, we need to clean them for the melt. The melt and the mud, oh my god, the mud. I had forgotten. It's hell to pay. Jumping time-frames, Diana was here, and a trouper. She only required strong coffee with cream (just the way I like it), good conversation, and a warm place to sleep. Those things I can offer. House Rules. I don't offer much in terms of creature comforts, but I make a mean chili, and I've learned how to stay warm. Follow my lead. Even when I fall, I don't fall hard. I have a few years yet. As long as they let me write you, I'll probably be ok, but the noun would be a verb and it was no longer clear what you were saying. Listen, we've been over this material a great many times, what we thought was being said. Deep into the ice-storm, I don't believe anything. A blank slate and a chisel. I make some marks, that's all, writing longhand. This is to be under my own control but I have no idea what I mean. I tried to explain to Diana, that I just wrote, it's all I can do. A merely thing, what I can muster.