the man's grunt
on seeing his windshield—
dawn-lit frost
So the news is the big winter storm hitting the country. It even brought some arctic weather to us here in Dallas-Fort Worth, temperatures around 20, and enough snow and ice (about an inch) to close all schools and work. Not that anyone told me, I was up at 5:30 for the slow and dangerous drive in over a solid sheet of ice, sat in the parking lot for an hour waiting for someone, anyone, to show up. Bastards. But it's all good, nice to have a day off, though I know in Michigan I never once had a "snow day" from work... Texans are pussies.
I love snowstorms. It's good to have the bustle of the city world forced to slow down. Though here there's none of the shared cameraderie like when a city is buried in feet of snow and everyone's outside shoveling, pretending to complain but always with the hint of a smile and a glimmer in their eyes... still, while I was at the coffee shop treating myself to too much coffee, there was still the requisite good-natured grumbling between us patrons and the staff.
Meanwhile, outside Winter was smiling her great white toothy smile, laughing in the little "dust devils" of powdery snow busy drifting everywhere in a thousand intricate patterns, glittering in a million places as the ice throws back broken scraps of sunlight. The people complain but Winter is glorified in their very breath, the angry words transformed into a praise of things frozen immediately upon leaving their mouths.
Though I don't miss frigid temperatures of Detroit all that bad, it's nice to get a taste of winter. I'm a northerner at heart, and it's still surreal to me to see old men out mowing their dust-billowing lawns in January. So here's a few winter-themed haiku in honor of this probably equally brief moment of winter, at least for us here in north Texas.
frosted glass...
the silver moon seen
through winter-bare trees
silent as the snowfall...
the crow,
flying away.
the puppy's cocked head
in her first snowfall--
how interesting this life is!
deep snow
and paper birch—
the silence of white light
the starling's
speckled breast--
flying through the flurries
winter fog
off the sea...
one crow calling
Now Brandon, you shouldn't be so hard on them thar Texans. It's not that they are wusses, it's more that they simply aren't used to mega snowy weather. When stuff like this comes around only every few years, it doesn't allow a person to become familiar with it or to build in confidence in dealing with it. ;-)
ReplyDeletebut, but... the thing is, they act like their God's gift to the world. I have to take what shots at them I can.
ReplyDeleteI do at least appreciate that they know and admit that they don't know how to drive in it. And I was laughing my ass off at them the other day as people were driving 30 mph on the highway which was by then mostly clear. I did go off the highway coming around on an onramp which had sudden ice, but was laughing the whole while and without breaking stride, whipped around back to the pavement, missing the ditch and enjoying myself immensely. Felt like home.
How do you figure Texans act like God's gift to the world? I'm SO intrigued to hear this.....
ReplyDeleteYou haven't gotten any of that? I mean beyond the whole "don't mess with Texas" and "everything's bigger in Texas" stuff, the people here just seem really damn proud of the place. Sometimes when I tell people I'm from Michigan they kind of laugh, always automatically assuming I hated it up there and how great I must feel being here in Texas.
ReplyDeleteNot a huge deal really, and hell, I understand home-state pride, to a point; I love Michigan, aside from the lack of mountains. I'm not upset about it in a real way, just... shall we say playfully annoyed?