Manna Meditations, Day 2 Blue Ridge Parkway. Black ribbon of road: I let the car swoop and dive through the curves, trying not to look at the vistas. The views: it’s why people come here, you know. There are overlooks every few miles where you can pull your car off the road and stand in […]
Tag: winter
the thaw …
When the thaw happens, it happens all at once. * Almost two months ago now. We go walking in the woods: me, T and two dear friends. New-fallen snow lines every limb and leaf. The light is pale silver; the air cold, but not too cold. Like Winter is making up its mind. * We have […]
Flashback: a Promise, Left on a Park Bench in the Frost
As I write these words, Winter is having its last gasp. Fat white flakes swirl, caught in the golden cones streaming from the streetlights. Once again — when we’re all hungering so fiercely for Spring — the world erases itself into white. And yet: Winter cannot last. If you’re finding that hard to believe today, please know that I dug […]
A promise, on a cold, rainwet day …
Summer comes. It cannot be stopped, will not be held back. * It pushes up from the southernmost places, unfurling in gold light. The icecicles grow narrow. The pond darkens at its center — liquid underneath, warming into wet. Small green things force their way out of the earth and into the sun — […]
defiance …
The birds come back first, though it’s seven degrees out. I watch them: raucous, small-bodied rebels, singing in the trees. Red-breasted balls of blue fluff, they wear their colors as a dare — an act of defiance against February’s gray. I watch them: hopping. Chattering. They warble and catcall, leaving a complicated series of footprints on […]
Flashback: A Question, Left By a Brook …
True story? At least three times in the past three days, someone I care about has stared straight into my eyes and said something like: I can’t take much more of winter. They haven’t said the words like people griping about getting caught in an afternoon rainshower. Instead, they’ve spoken with a kind of emptiness and exhaustion […]
the unflinching honesty of fresh snow…
I go out walking in the white — shocked, as always, at how it erases what came Before… And how it reveals whatever came After. On its clean slate, I can see clearly the crease made by the wing of a low-flying bird. The tracks of even the most soft-footed fox. The bullethole of each […]
ASHLEY WILSON FELLERS 