from MORNING DRIVE JOURNAL: DECEMBER 30, 1998

The temperature dropped

yesterday afternoon. The night was cold. The temp this morning is above zero, but only slightly. There was enough plow bank at the end of our driveway when I got home last night that I had to fire up the snow blower and clear away the snow. It is an affectionate weather - enough that we know Yes, it is winter, but not so severe as to hurt us badly. The great white beast with the very cold nose is nuzzling playfully.

The sky is blue. The morning light is so rich it looks reddish on the snow at the north end of the roof of our house. The radio says it is five degrees below zero. Perhaps, perhaps not. The pick-up, of course, is stiff and grumpy. There are jet vapor trails this morning, in approximately the same position as I saw the two jets the other day. Downtown, the Grand River is open still and it steams in the cold air. Out in the country, off to the northwest, Green Lake steams, too. A large cloud rolls away from it.

The land around us changes so slowly day to day; you could not easily create a sense of the change on videotape in the same way you can in words. Snow at least makes a clear and definitive statement, a dramatic change all at once. But now how will we see further changes? It will be more difficult. Details captured in words, in a poet's language, day after day after day, will these let us see and follow the more subtle nuances in the turn of the seasons?