The Winter Solstice

Still the same old snow I've come to know quite well (now with ice!), I ventured forth from my home to the cold outdoors. The snow is beautiful and the noise the thin layer of ice makes when it gives under foot is much more fulfilling than a crunchy pile of autumn leaves. What I love most about this sort of weather is...the silence. When all that can be heard is the sound of snowfall and the glittering chime of ice covered tree limbs lightly striking against one another.

This winter scene I instantly coupled with Robert Frost's "Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening."


Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

Whose woods these are I think I know
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sounds the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Robert Frost


This photo I snapped near my home of a red farmhouse across Lacamas Lake.