A Silent Artist's Visit

 A silent artist

etches ice-

beauty on chilled glass. 

The winds were howling and whistling during this last winter storm. The bone-chilling cold could be heard as we huddled inside our house. The trees were swaying and bending but thankfully never breaking. The temperature plunged from 40 degrees to 7 degrees in a matter of a few hours. 

I was walking through the house checking on various things in preparation for Christmas. As I walked into the room where I was hiding gifts, I noticed some beautiful icy artwork on 2 of our windows. The crystals were aglow with red and white from the decorative lights on our trees below. The long icy lines were so thin and delicate. The smaller hash lines crossing them were of various lengths and looked like they had been carefully placed by an artist. This frosty creation in the corner of my window brought joy to a blustery, frigid, worrisome day.

Thank you Jack Frost for the magical silent visit to show me the beauty that could be found in today. 

Poetry form: Lune

The Lune is American Haiku. It is 13 syllables with 5-3-5 syllable count in 3 lines. It was first created by Robert Kelly  

Triggered Transformation

 

32 degrees

triggers transformation.

Oxygen atoms plus the four nearest hydrogen neighbors

bond in a rigid lattice

stretched with openness,

as a paper thin sheet of frozen crystals

encrusts

the pond. 

I was walking a trail the other morning, actually one of the only mornings below freezing that we have had this year, when I was stopped by the beauty of the sun reflecting off the ice (it also has been pretty gray around here).  It just made me stop and notice one of the beauties of winter that cannot happen in any other season.  

Then it made me wonder- how does ice really form? how can it form such a thin layer?  I went home and googled more information about how water turns from liquid to solid. It is a pretty amazing thing that happens with this liquid becoming less dense as a solid. The new learning I had inspired the poem above.

I love how a simple walk caused a wonder that brought me new learning and understanding.