Snowing Hard

Dusk, it starts snowing hard. I may be spared an ice storm, and tomorrow morning will be lovely. I'm so glad I got to town, so I can just cook and eat, and read a book about bats. Also I might take a sponge bath and wash my hair. I should have just taken a motel room in town, listened to live music and had a few drinks, but I wanted to be home. Becomes a question of creature comforts. Curled in a down bag, with a wolf ruff, (coyote), almost everything looks artificial; on close examination almost everything is. I spend a long time thinking about the oral tradition. Still snowing hard, an inch an hour, I should be well and truly buried by morning. Which I am, when the power goes out, and the silence wakes me, after midnight, ten inches and still snowing hard. The back porch light makes a tunnel. The level of snow on the back porch is several inches above the door sill. The radio says it's a class two snow emergency (a class three, they just shoot you and push you off to the side) and everyone is supposed to stay home. Like there's much choice. Chew through the bindings and think about dinner. Power is in and out, I'm losing lines. I finally give up on writing and turn to the acorn squash. Clean and toast the seeds in butter with salt and pepper, stuff one half with sausage and the other with red currant jam, make a batch of biscuits. Candle light is good for this, a ring of light. A flicker is better than no light at all. A sputtering. The firebox, when I open the stove, to throw on a log, is the only mediation; fuck Luther and all the various popes, I'll take my chances in a tree-tip pit. One way or another, it's always the fines and tells.The stigma that nails us where we live. I have no advantage, there is no advantage, you burrow in and try to sleep through the worst of it, then shake off the snow and make a cup of tea. Another 3 to 6 inches of snow as the temps dive. A crystalline wonderland. A completely virgin landscape. You can't even imagine. Nothing as far as the eye can see, a white field and black stick trees.14 inches of snow and zero degrees, the power was off for 12 hours. I took a nap and woke to the sound of the fridge. Full moon casting deep shadow. The world is incredibly beautiful, every branch mounded in white. Visibility about twenty feet, all the interstices plugged with white. I don't even think about going outdoors, pull a chair up to the stove, and read a John Sanford novel. Make the sausage, pepper, and onion stir-fry and a batch of biscuits. I'll have to break trail again, down to the Jeep, and take a shovel, to dig out the upper culvert. Time is suspended. Read Proust.