Winter Skies

The balmy warmth couldn't last. A tremendous cold front roared in a couple of nights ago, dropping the temperature from 65 to 35. Up here on the ridge, everything that isn't stowed or battened down simply blows away, and the house moans and shudders and the dampers flap and even the water in the commodes rocks back and forth. The payoff for all of this is the skies.
I am forever running out in thin jammies and bare feet, trying to capture those cold front skies.

Morning's the best, when the sun sets the front door glass aflame.



Here's my favorite picture of all: an American goldfinch, riding the thin whips of willow branches, strung with buds like golden beads in the storm light. I would like to do that, hang on with my tiny claws, knowing that if I let go, I had but to spread my wings and the wind would carry me to Pennsylvania.