The First Wintry Day

I awoke yesterday to a pink sky and white ground, and howling wind. November is usually the grayest month of the year here in northern Vermont, but this year it had been sunny and mild until yesterday.

The snow had fallen, but the sun also shone, brightening the dried grasses and the deep carmine of red osier dogwood.

Snow, heaped on stone walls, made a greater drama of boulders.

Snow, like a dollop of whipped cream, made dried hydrangeas festive.

I did not cut back my perennial border, so a benefit of laziness: seeing serried ranks of crisp golden leaves against the white backdrop.

More delicate are small weeds making round-topped thin lines, dark weeds, lighter shadows. I love the change of seasons and love winter's light, when snow covered ground bounces brightness into the house. I like being nestled in the warm indoors, thinking inwardly as the garden rests. Henry David Thoreau, in his journal entry of December 11, 1855, speaks of winter:

The winter, with its snow and ice, is not an evil to be corrected. It is as it was designed and made to be, for the artist has had leisure to add beauty to use. ....To perceive freshly, with fresh senses, is to be inspired. Great winter itself looked like a precious gem, reflecting rainbow colors from one angle. 

And from the Japanese 17th century poet Basho, a light touch on the season, in his poem "A Ball of Snow":

you make the fire
and I'll show you something wonderful:
a big ball of snow!