Ice

After a lot of snow, we have had a lot of ice in Connecticut. The driving has been, periodically, rather alarming, in part because as it rained and froze it was often hard to know if the road was wet or covered in black ice. The thawing and freezing forced ice up under our eaves, which became water dripping into our living room. It made me think of Robert Frost:

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

But our fear of icy roads and Frost's analogies don't account for the incredibly beauty of the layers of thick ice covering the bushes and trees, and glazing the tops of the rounded piles of snow.

Day after day, everything glistened. Our normally beautiful neighborhood was transformed into an alien and magical place.

In time, even I became a little tired of the extra scraping and sanding and chiseling involved in trying to take the ice off driveway and roof. The cold nagged at us. But always, beneath the layer of ice, we know that there is the promise of a spring that approaches, day by day.